Children pay the price for armed conflicts in the Middle East

The conflicts in the Middle East are taking their toll not only on lives, displacement of human beings or reducing houses to rubble. They have a far-reaching and devastating impact on another, crucial segment of the population: children.

"More than 13 million children are being denied an education by the wars in the region, the United Nations said in a report last week," said The Gulf Today in an editorial on Sunday.

It issued a shot across the bows, saying "the hopes of a generation" would be dashed if they cannot return to classrooms. Nearly 9,000 schools have been rendered inoperational due to violence.

"The report mentions cases of students and teachers coming under direct fire, classrooms used as makeshift bomb shelters and children having to cross active front lines just to appear for tests," added the paper.

Last year alone, there were over 200 attacks on schools in Syria, Iraq, Libya, the Palestinian territories, Sudan and Yemen. In Syria in particular, education is paying a "massive price" owing to conflict. One in four schools has been shut since the conflict erupted, causing more than two million children to drop out and putting close to half a million in danger of losing their schooling.

In addition, over 50,000 teachers have left their posts. The violence in Iraq has badly affected schooling of at least 950,000 children. Refugees often say the education of their children is their top priority, he said, but many countries in the region simply are not able to provide that basic human right.

What is making things worse is that countries hosting refugees are struggling to get children into schools because their institutions were never made to assimilate such large numbers. Losing this generation of children will lead to more militancy, migration and a dismal future for the troubled zones.

It is sad that children in the troubled Middle Eastern countries cannot lead normal lives like their counterparts elsewhere. Instead of books, writing material and classrooms, they have to contend with gunfire, horrific injuries and dead bodies, and the deafening roar of bomb explosions. One can only imagine the physical and psychological toll on these children in the long run.

"The international community should make an all-out effort to stem the conflict in the besieged areas concerned if they do not wish to see these innocent beings grow up into wreckers of society," concluded the Sharjah-based daily.

Source: WAM