How Ahmed, a 9-year-old blind boy, came to take the place of teachers in war-ridden Yemen. His school, a ruin without roof and windows

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Hundreds of students arrive every day at a school in Taiz, a city in southwestern Yemen, which in 2004 had a population of more than two million.

In the country devastated by the war that began in 2014, nothing is what it should be.

School is, in fact, a ruin. Teachers don’t get salaries because there are no resources.

And when one of the teachers doesn’t make it to class, his place is held by Ahmed, a 9-year-old boy, who walks in front of the class and holds the lessons.

“I’m teaching the kids what I’ve already studied. The easiest for me is the Koran and the sciences,” he tells the BBC.

Ahmed was born blind. Most of his life was during the interminable conflict. So he knows exactly what he wants.

“We want a new school, chairs, windows, backgammon, lights, batteries. We want to rebuild the top floor, a door, so the wind and sun don’t beat us. Windows, let’s stop raining,” he says.

The school at which Ahmed teaches and teaches at the same time closed in 2016, when it was occupied by Houthi rebels, who challenge the government’s authority.

It then reopened after government forces drove the rebels away. However, the noises of the war can still be heard daily from the windowless classrooms.

“We always hear the noises. When I hear them, I feel like I’m going to die,” says Ahmed, who flinchs after every explosion in the distance.

Among the hundreds of children who insist on coming to school every day are many ambitious, if scared.

“We’re scared that we might run over me. We come in danger and leave in danger. But we want to learn and become doctors or something. For us it’s always dangerous. We want the war to end,” Khulod, a little girl who teaches at school, told the BBC.

A humanitarian crisis of proportions

The conflict in Yemen began in 2014 between the Sanaa government and Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The war escalated a year later, when Saudi Arabia and eight other Arab states, backed by the US, Britain and France, began an aerial bombardment of the rebels.

This American strategy, begun by Barack Obama, was continued with even more support from Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the conflict has generated a humanitarian crisis of proportions and around 110,000 deaths.

Earlier this month, Joe Biden announced that the U.S. would stop supporting offensive actions by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in Yemen.

“We are intensifying our diplomacy to end the war in Yemen, a war that has created a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe,” said Biden, who noted that his administration would support a U.N.-led initiative that would impose a ceasefire in Yemen and restore peace talks.

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Joe Biden:

‘Insufficient’ financial contributions

On Monday, March 1, several individual governments and donors attended a virtual meeting organised by Switzerland and the UN in Geneva as violence between Houthi rebels and the government escalates in Marib, northern Yemen.

Opening the meeting, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged donors to provide $ 3.85 billion in financial assistance (about 3.18 billion euros) to prevent famine from covering Yemen, this very poor country on the Arabian Peninsula where “childhood is hell.”

UN officials were not satisfied at the end, AFP notes, as cited by Agerpres.

“The result of today’s meeting (…) is disappointing,” Guterres regretted, explaining that the commitments are lower than the 2020 financial contributions, which in turn were 1.5 billion less than the total of $ 3.4 billion needed.

“Millions of children, women and men in Yemen are in desperate need of help to survive. Reducing assistance is tantamount to a death penalty,” the UN secretary-general lamented in a statement.

“I thank those who have engaged generously and ask others to think again about what they can do to help prevent the worst hunger the world has experienced in decades,” Antonio Guterres insisted.