Unicef: Over 900 children killed and 1,300 injured in Yemen last year

Over 900 children have been killed and nearly 1,300 others injured as a result of the Yemen conflict in the past year alone, according to a report released on Sunday by Unicef, the UN children’s agency.

The report said that an average of at least six children have been killed or injured in Yemen every day since March 2015, a figure almost seven times higher than the whole of 2014.

It also documented over 50 verified attacks on schools, meaning many children were killed and injured while at school or on their way to school.

“These numbers represent the tip of the iceberg as they only indicate the cases that Unicef was able to verify,” read a press release introducing the report entitled “Children on the Brink”.

“Children are paying the highest price for a conflict not of their making. They have been killed or maimed across the country and are no longer safe anywhere in Yemen. Even playing or sleeping has become dangerous,” said Unicef’s Representative in Yemen Julien Harneis.

In the past year, Unicef also verified 848 cases of child recruitment; parties to the conflict have recruited children as young as ten years old into the fighting.

Beyond the direct impact of the war, Unicef estimates that nearly 10,000 additional deaths may have occurred among children under five years old in the past year due to preventable diseases as a result of the decline in critical health services.

According to the data, nearly 10 million children or 80 per cent of the country’s total population of children are now in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. More than 2 million children face the threat of diarrhoeal diseases and 320,000 are at risk of severe acute malnutrition.