UNICEF official: Yemeni children to face year of pain and suffering

Nearly 10 million children in Yemen are facing a year of pain and suffering with no end in sight to the deadly conflict, UNICEF warned yesterday.

“Continuous bombardment and street fighting are exposing children and their families to a deadly combination of violence, disease and deprivation,” UNICEF representative Julien Harneis said in a statement.

It is “hard to measure the direct impact of the conflict on children, however, UN statistics confirmed that 747 children have been killed and another 1,108 were injured since March last year while 724 children were pressed into some form of military activity which tells only part of the story. But they are shocking enough in themselves,” he explained.

“The broader effects of the violence on innocent civilians extend much further. Children make up at least half of the 2.3 million people estimated to have been displaced from their homes, and of the more than 19 million people struggling to get water on a daily basis; 1.3 million children under five face the risk of acute malnutrition and acute respiratory tract infections. And at least two million children cannot go to school.”

The UN official said public services like health, water and sanitation have been decimated and cannot meet the ever-increasing needs of a desperate population.

“Few of the 7.4 million children requiring protection including psycho-social support to help deal with the effects of their exposure to violence will actually receive it,” he added.

Also read:

• Key areas in the Yemen conflict.
• Yemen: The war nobody is talking about.
• 643 deaths in Yemen in 19 days.
• Cluster bombs are killing civilians in Yemen.