A new report published by the United Nations children’s agency says six years after the war on Yemen, just over two million boys and girls are out of school.

The report cites poverty, conflict, and a lack of opportunities as the key reasons behind the disruption to children’s education. UNICEF also warns that this number could rise to six million. It says an entire generation is facing dire consequences now and in the future where they may find themselves trapped in a cycle of poverty. To make matters worse, for more than four years now, two-thirds of teachers in Yemen (more than 170,000) have not received a regular salary because of the war.

The report makes an appeal for all attacks on schools to stop, saying there have been 231 such attacks. It also calls on international donors to support educational programs with long-term funding. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its regional allies; backed by the United States waged a deadly war on Yemen with almost daily airstrikes. Human Rights groups accuse Saudi Arabia of war crimes, saying vital civilian infrastructure including hospitals and schools have been bombed. Rights groups also accuse Western power of being complicit in war crimes as they continue to sell weapons to Riyadh which monitoring groups and charities say is prolonging the war. 

Riyadh has also imposed an all-out land, air, and sea blockade on Yemen resulting in what the United Nations says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have been killed, many of them women and children.