Gunmen seizing north Yemen schools, endangering truce

Dubai: Gunmen are seizing schools in north Yemen despite a ceasefire to end a war between the Sana'a government and Shi'ite rebels, in a sign the three-month-old truce may be under pressure, a UNICEF official said.

Both the rebels and pro-government fighters have occupied schools by force, scaring off teachers and students in a region where school attendance is already abysmally low.

"Schools are being seized by armed men from both sides," Yemen UNICEF representative Geere Cappelaere told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday.

"This may be indicative of the jeopardisation of the ceasefire as a whole," he said. "We would have loved to see these efforts being sustained. Unfortunately there are indications that we're headed in the opposite direction."

Yemen agreed a truce with rebels in February to end an war that has been waged on-and-off since 2004 and displaced 250,000 people. It briefly drew in top oil exporter Saudia Arabia last year after insurgents seized Saudi border areas.

The central government, also facing a burgeoning separatist movement in the south, is struggling to stabilise a country at the strategic southern base of the Arabian peninsula where al Qaeda is trying to strengthen its foothold.

Cappelaere said UNICEF was trying to survey how badly affected the schools were from the seizures but that a United Nations assessment team sent to the northern Saada region had to pull out for security reasons amid growing tensions.

"There are several parts of the north where we simply don't have access," he said.

Yemen has been under increasing Western and Saudi pressure to resolve domestic conflicts to focus on fighting a resurgent al Qaeda, whose Yemen-based regional arm claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a US-bound plane in December.

Cappelaere said gunmen from all sides have occupied schools as a recurring tactic during the six cycles of war in the north, where rebels say their complaints of socioeconomic and religious discrimination remain unaddressed.

The return to this practice was worrying, he said.

Earlier reports from local Yemeni watch groups indicated that both sides had also been using children in their armed forces, he said. But UNICEF was unable to confirm if the practice was continuing.

Low school attendance in some parts of the country, not only by children but also teachers frightened to return to school, "should be a red light flashing in everybody's mind," he said.

"In Saada, half of school age children are unable to attend school. When we check statistics by gender, it's worse. Only 38 per cent of girls are enrolled for basic education," he said. "As is, these statistics will only get worse".

The only way to improve the current conditions was a commitment to a sustainable peace agreement, he added.