Yemeni children brave sniper and mortar fire on their way to school

Every morning at six o'clock, ten-year-old Rafif and her younger brother get ready to go to school, wearing their cream and brown school uniforms.

Rafif always looks forward to meeting her friends and learning different subjects, from mathematics to Arabic and Islamic education. She is also excited to start studying English next year.

But Rafif's trip to school entails much greater risks than just crossing roads or the fear of missing the bus.

The Rafif School is located in Taiz, southwest of Yemen, on a mountain at the outskirts of a valley known as a “no man’s land,” and is located on a front line witnessing an intense conflict in the civil war between the forces supporting the internationally recognized Yemeni government, which is supported by Saudi Arabia, and the Ansar Allah Houthi group, which is supported by Iran.

On one side of the school are areas under the control of government forces, while on the other side there are Houthi sniper sites.

Rafif's house is located in a lower area on the mountainside.

Every time she goes to school, she has to walk up the mountain with her back exposed to sniper positions. “I feel afraid,” Rafif says.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), about 3.2 million children in Yemen were out of school even before the war escalated last month.

The organization says that thousands of children have been killed or disabled since the outbreak of war in 2014, while thousands more have been recruited by armed groups on both sides of the conflict.

Despite these risks, Rafif says that she does not want to stop going to school, because she loves seeing her friends, and because school represents her only opportunity to spend time with them. Then she begins enumerating the names of the children in her class.

Going to school is the only time Rafif's parents allow her to leave the house, and they are keen for her to receive an education and have a chance for a better life.

Rafif hopes to become a doctor in the future.

Rafif's family moved to Taiz from the coastal city of Hodeidah nine years ago, seeking safety after the Houthis took control of the city, but Taiz itself has also suffered from the fighting.

Rafif says a mortar attack occurred two years ago outside her new home.

She added: "Everyone was outside except me and my brother, then a mortar shell fell from where we did not know, and the fragments penetrated the door and entered the house." Her arm was broken, and she still bears a scar in the place where she was hit.

In recent days, the fighting has intensified.

On Sunday, the Houthis cut off a vital supply road linking Taiz to Aden, which enabled them to encircle the city, and control of this road continued to change from one party to another.

Residents told the BBC that they fear the Houthis could take control of the city at any moment.

Residents say that government forces, on the other hand, made progress in other areas this week, as they regained control of strategic points on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a major sea lane, and also launched an attack in an attempt to regain control of the capital, Sanaa.

Most of the homes in Taiz are spread on the slopes of the mountains, but many of them were abandoned by families to escape the fighting.

We tried to visit the neighborhood where Rafif and her family live twice, but a local community elder advised us not to go, saying the area was too dangerous.

The first time, neighborhood residents told us that three people had been wounded by snipers, and the second time, we were informed that another shooting incident had occurred.

At Rafif School, one of the teachers, Abdul Raqeeb Al-Obaidi, 45 years old, took us to the roof of the building to show us what he said were Houthi camps, military barracks and sniper sites in the mountains.

While we were standing on the roof of the school, a Yemeni security advisor who was accompanying us suddenly asked us to go back inside, saying that we were visible from those positions and might come under fire.

Abdul Raqeeb laughs as he acknowledges the seriousness of the situation, saying that the school had been subjected to gunfire before.

He added: "The situation may explode at any moment, while we are sitting in class, sleeping, at school, or in the street. We do not know what our future will be like or what tomorrow will be like."

As for Abdelraqeeb, risks have become a part of daily life, to the point that his getting used to them causes concern.

Taiz has long been one of the most prominent battlefields in Yemen's devastating civil war.

After the Houthis ousted the government from the capital, Sanaa, in 2015, they tried to control Taiz, but local militants drove them out of most parts of the city.

Controlling Taiz would give the Houthis complete control over the north of the country, and in their latest attack, the Houthis are making extensive use of drones along with other weapons.

Sometimes, civilians pay the price for fighting.

Later that evening, we received a call from a hospital about a five-minute drive from the school, saying that two children had been seriously injured by a mortar shell.

When we arrived at Rawda Hospital, we saw a nurse standing outside the intensive care unit, holding a small pair of beige rubber sandals stained with blood.

The sandals belonged to Ahmed, a three-year-old child. We learned that he was killed when a mortar shell fell on a car repair shop in the city.

When I asked about the shoes, the nurse, Ikram Shamsan, started crying and said: “What sin did this child or his family commit?”

Ahmed was killed after shrapnel pierced his heart, entering through his back. The child was accompanied by his father, who was inflating his motorcycle tire in the repair shop. The father was not harmed.

A doctor told us that the father intended to leave his son at home, but the child cried because he wanted to accompany him, and when the father carried his son's body and left the hospital, he wondered how he would face the child's mother.

Another boy, Amjad, aged 11, was also in the repair shop. He worked there with his brother and their uncle, sending money to their family in their village.

Amjad was admitted to the hospital around eight in the evening that day, and his mother arrived there around six in the morning the next day, after an eight-hour journey from the village.

She sat next to his bed, praying and trying to hold herself together, but as soon as she left the room, she knelt down and collapsed crying.

Doctors said that Amjad's heart rate improved during his mother's visit, and they saw that his condition had become stable enough to undergo another surgery.

He has since undergone surgery, but remains in critical condition.