Landmines in schoolrooms: the perils of accessing education in Yemen
Teenager Maymouna Suleiman’s dream is to one day become an engineer.
Maymouna is only 14 and has lived over half of her life in one of the world’s most lethal war zones, Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province, which has been systematically blockaded and attacked by Houthi militias since 2015.
Like many children growing up in conflict zones, Maymouna’s education has been severely hindered — not only by moving frontlines but by the deadly presence of landmines once the battlefields move on.
Across Yemen, locals claim the Houthi militias turned schools into military barracks and warehouses to stock landmines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in every region they occupied.
Villagers in the Jabal Habashi District of Taiz Governorate, where Maymouna lives, believe these tactics were employed to “destroy the education system” in Yemen, where 38 per cent of the population is under 14.
One of these children is young Maymouna, who attended the Al Shaab School in the Jabal Habashi village of Akkad, until it was taken over by militias.
Al Shaab School is one of the hundreds of schools that have have been damaged by Houthi landmines since the start of the war in September 2014, effectively depriving thousands of students of pursuing their education in their area.
Maymouna told Project Masam how Houthi landmines had “destroyed the dream” of her and her peers — the dream of continuing with their education in Akkad.
“Our school was big and beautiful, and one morning we woke up to find our school destroyed and the classrooms leveled,” Maymouna said.
An explosion had rocked the entire district, as villagers were returning from the Eid al-Adha prayer at the local mosque in the morning. A huge part of the building was destroyed.
“Then, my friends in the village of Akkad had to go to other areas far from their homes on foot after half of our school was destroyed, in order to continue their education, and most of them fully stopped studying.”
Yassin El Berkani, the Deputy Director of the Education Office in Jabal Habashi, described the Al Shaab School as a basic school that included students up to Grade 9.
“Because there was a war in the region, weapons, landmines and other things were stored inside the school, causing an explosion that ruined more than six classrooms,” El Berkani told Project Masam.
“As a result of the presence of landmines inside the school, students and teachers refrained from attending, and the educational process was reduced to the sixth grade only because there were no classrooms and because of the risks that students could be exposed to.”
One of the school’s 500 pupils, eight-year-old Hady Abdo Fadel, was injured by an explosive device after he picked up it from the school premises.
“I was playing in my school playground and there I found a long device; when I tried to grab it to play with it, it suddenly exploded and I lost three fingers,” the little boy, who has returned to Al Shaab school, told Project Masam.
“I became afraid of my beloved school because of landmines that may explode at any time. I hope that deminers can clear schools of landmines to allow students to once again go back to their studies, safely.”
Classrooms used for mines stockpiles
Following the incident, the Education Office in Jabal Habashi submitted an appeal to Colonel Aref Al Qahtani, in charge of Project Masam’s demining teams in Taiz Governorate, stating the presence of landmines under the school’s rubble.
What Al Qahtani and his team discovered was distressing: not only had outer buildings been used to store explosives, but the classrooms had been also been used to stockpile landmines and ammunition — which resulted in the explosion that shattered students’ study place.
After Project Masam’s Team 23 (which has been operating in Mawza since 2018) arrived on site to survey the area, it discovered dozens of landmines.
“We found a lot of rubble and landmines scattered all over the place, in addition to the danger that was still under the rubble and in the school’s vicinity,” leader of Team 23, Engineer Abdo Ibrahim, told Project Masam.
Ibrahim added: “We found that there was a large amount of rubble, so we directed this problem to the Project Masam’s Managing Director [Ousama Algosaibi], who agreed to finance the removal of the rubble to facilitate the team’s work to clear whatever was under the rubble.”
Clearance operations are ongoing, and a section of the school remains blocked off.
Al Qahtani said: “This work will lead to the return of students and the return of the displaced as many students have been uprooted to schools nearby.”
Thanking the demining team for their “interest in the educational process and the health and safety of our students”, deputy director El Berkani highlighted how the closure of Al Shaab School was not an isolated event.
Indeed, in July, the United Nations reported that more than 2,900 schools in Yemen have been “destroyed, damaged, or used for non-educational purposes”, with damage caused by fighting, shelling or landmines.
XL explosive charges under floorboards
In November 2021, Project Masam discovered five improvised landmines and radio command operated improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which linked 11 explosive charges together. They were all hidden under classroom floors in a school on the frontline Al Hodeidah Governorate.
What Teams 20 and 26 discovered in the Al-Nasr School in Beit Bish village in Hays District was blood-curling: the explosive charges were some of the largest ones they had encountered, and had been placed under desks, with the floor tiles tightly positioned back on top, effectively concealing the explosive threats.
Three more IEDs were found inside the school premises.
“A tactic used by the Houthis is to conceal huge devices under the floors of community buildings including schools, clinics and mosques; additionally smaller devices are often buried in parking areas and around the immediate vicinity,” Project Masam’s Managing Director Ousama Algosaibi explained.
“The total explosive content of the large IEDs is usually hundreds of kilograms, as the devices link multiple, large main charges hidden throughout the buildings.”
When Leader of Team 26 Sami Saeed discovered the booby-trapped landmines, he said: “These devices are considered high-explosive devices used to blow up buildings and bridges, and the Houthi militia has used them to blow up schools, as well as water projects, healthcare units, and bridges on main roads.”
Saeed added: “We cleared these explosive devices, which were tied to a remote detonation cord, and we cleared all 14 devices from inside the classrooms. Also, 15 anti-tank mines were cleared from around the school. We cleared them safely.”
It is no wonder that, amid Yemen’s ailing education sector, hundreds of teachers have either quit their jobs (or not been paid), and millions of school-aged children have no school to attend, or have left the system all together — to work, or to fight.
Unable to reach school for two years
In neighbouring Mawza district, we met Thabet Al Zaatari, the Director of the Al-Amal School, which became a Houthi base during the occupation.
“Al-Amal School was a centre for Al-Houthi from which they fought the national forces, which led to the school destruction and mining of the entire school perimeter,” Al Zaatari explained, as he walked us around the school vicinity.
“We could not reach the school for more than two years, and we were looking for alternative places to teach students away from the mines surrounding the school,” the director added.
Team 23 was called to Al-Amal School, where it discovered a network of landmines.
“Six mines came out from under the school gate alone,” the director pointed out.
The perimeter was cleared and the school reopened after its surroundings and a road leading up to it were rendered safe.
Landmines replanted after clearance
Still in Mawza, we met with Ali Muhammad Abdu Majali, Director of Educational Administration in the district, who took us around an area called Al-Safaliyah, where hundreds of landmines were found planted in and around local schools.
“I followed up and supervised the removal of many mines planted by the Houthi militia in Mawza schools, especially in the Al-Safaliyah area, where the schools were re-surveyed to protect our children and grandchildren from mines,” Majali told Project Masam.
According to the director, Project Masam played a major role in clearing landmines that were planted and re-planted in the area; allowing for schools to reopen.
Local resident Hisham Abdo Muhammad Ali, said that although his area — a flashpoint of the war — had been previously cleared, Houthis re-took control of the land and planted new landmines.
“After Team 23 came the first time, Masam secured the school, but these militias came and mined them again, and now the school has been completely re-cleared, including the interior and the entire school perimeter,” Ali explained.
Director Majali also introduced us to Muhammad Sadiq Ali Saeed, Construction Supervisor of the Omar bin Abdulaziz School in Al-Dhaweha village, where Project Masam’s demining Team 23 recently carried out a clearance operation.
“Thanks to the efforts of Team 23, we managed to enter this area,” Saeed said pointing to the school that was out-of-bounds due to the high risk posed by the presence of explosive items.
Saeed added: “We were able to get here and rehabilitate the school, clear it of remnants of war, and build three new classrooms.
“By the grace of God, the area was secured and the danger removed after clearing all existing mines and making the area safe again.”
Mohamed Saleh Marani, a local villager, witnessed the landmine clearance efforts around Omar bin Abdulaziz School in Al-Dhaweha.
“Masam opened roads and secured schools so that our children could learn in a civilised manner, as no nation can flourish without science and knowledge,” Marani said.
Lingering fears
This is a feeling shared by young Maymouna, who hopes to complete her education and go to university to realise her dream of becoming an engineer.
Discussing her ambitions, the teenager said: “I want to be an engineer to contribute to the rebuilding of my school that was destroyed by landmines and help the next generation of pupils to learn in big classrooms near their homes.”
While she said she was grateful for deminers’ life-saving work in her school, Maymouna reminded us the road to success for many students is still paved with serious obstacles — especially in areas that have not been rendered safe yet.
“It is a dangerous work that could claim their [deminers’] lives, and they do this to secure my life and the lives of my peers in our school.
“However, we still feel afraid because of the presence of landmines near us. If one of the children goes out, landmines can easily claim his or her life.”
Last year, Save The Children found that 60 per cent of children whose school came under attack, or felt at risk, did not return to their classroom.
With this in mind, Masam teams continue to carry out Mine Risk Education in these areas to teach schoolchildren and adults how to identify landmines, booby traps and unexploded remnants of war, and to report them to protect themselves and others from explosive devices.
By Elsa Buchanan
