© KEYSTONE/EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Forty-seven children were “killed or maimed” in January and February in the war that is devastating Yemen, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Saturday. The violence has worsened in the country, according to the agency.
Since the beginning of the conflict “more than 10,200 children have been killed or injured”, adds the organization in a press release, adding the organization in a press release, while stressing that the real toll was “probably higher”.
UNICEF adds that more than 2,500 schools are unusable after being destroyed, occupied for military purposes or used as refuge for the displaced.
The war in Yemen since 2014 pits the Houthis, supported by Iran, against government forces, supported since 2015 by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and in which the United Arab Emirates participate in particular.
380,000 dead
This coalition claims that Iran and Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian Lebanese Shiite movement, are training rebel fighters and supplying them with military equipment. Iran denies any support other than political.
According to a UN report published in November 2021, the war has claimed nearly 380,000 lives, the vast majority of them due to the indirect consequences of the fighting, such as lack of drinking water, hunger and disease.
The organization had already recalled that the level of development of Yemen, the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, had declined by two decades due to the conflict. Nearly 80% of the approximately 30 million inhabitants depend on humanitarian aid.
The UN Security Council reported in January that nearly 2,000 child soldiers recruited by Houthi rebels had been killed between January 2020 and May 2021.