Bad news for the region

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a new warning in a recent report on the impact of conflicts on the education in six countries and territories in the Middle East, announcing that more than 13 million children are being denied even basic education and that the hopes of a generation will be dashed if the situation persists.

The report also mentioned the fact that close to 9,000 schools can no longer be used — in Gaza, which has been ravaged by repeated Israeli wars of aggression, and also in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Iraq — a very serious development with long-term repercussions.

“It is not just the physical damage being done to schools but the despair felt by a generation of schoolchildren who see their hopes and future shattered,” said the regional director of UNICEF in the Middle East and North Africa.

In Syria alone, about 2 million children simply dropped out of school due to the civil war, raging for five years now.

Schools in Syria have been targeted by the warring parties mercilessly and indiscriminately. But it not Syria’s story alone.

It is also that of Yemen, where schools have been turned into army camps or arsenals by the Houthis; of Libya, where the entire school system has broken down; of Iraq, where ethnic conflicts and decades of war left millions of schoolchildren out of the educational system.

This does not bode well for the future of the region and its stability.

Lack of education makes people fall easy prey to all sorts of individuals with malefic agendas.

No wonder Daesh and other radical movements are reaping a rich crop in so many parts of the Arab world.

What makes things worse is the inability of countries affected by wars to do much about the education crisis. How could they, when all efforts go towards killing fellow citizens?

The answer to the problem is clear: End armed conflicts, restore political order across the area, based on true democracy and respect for human rights, and get down to rebuilding the countries and their institutions.

Regrettably, the situation across the Middle East is bleak. Conflicts are raging unabated, with little hope for an end soon; energies are spent on killings and destruction, and the price of it all is paid by children.

Unfortunately, these very children denied education might become ruthless adults bent on more destruction, in a vicious circle that could become virtuous with little effort on the part of the countries involved and of the international community.