Local Editor
Possibly the most important and daunting of news to seep out of Yemen this week – though it fails to apply as a shock – is the recruitment of child soldiers by the Saudi-led coalition fighting on the frontlines against the Houthi Ansarullah revolutionaries.
According to an Al Jazeera exclusive, the coalition, which fights alongside, and for forces loyal to the resigned regime of former Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, takes on children from among poor families in Taiz and Hadi-held areas in the south before sending them over the Saudi border where they are made to defend the kingdom from frequent Houthi retaliatory attacks.
Recruiters and people traffickers often promise the teenagers, sometimes as young as 14, work in kitchens with lucrative salaries, but the children end up at training camps and later engage in battles with rebels.
They are then passed along a trafficking route across the war-torn country to the Saudi border, where they are given ID cards and spirited across the border to training camps in the kingdom. Others remain in Yemen where they train and fight alongside regime forces battling the Houthi revolutionaries on home ground.
But the use of child soldiers in the devastating war is neither new nor shocking. The truth is all factions involved in the Yemen conflict have exploited the economic hardships of families to aid in their recruitment of soldiers.
According to a source within the force, the pro-government coalition forces offer around 60,000 Yemeni Rial – that's anything between £80-£180 depending on the local currency exchange – to children who join their ranks, and considering the situation for most families at the moment, that is a large carrot on a stick.
Source: The News Arab, Edited by website Team
