UN: At least 11 Yemen children killed in 2 separate attacks

An ambulance is seen at the scene after an artillery attack was carried out in Taiz, Yemen on 30 November 2020 [Abdulnasser Alseddik/Anadolu Agency]

At least 11 children, including a one-month-old, were killed in Yemen in two separate attacks over the past three days, the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) said yesterday.

The internationally recognised Saudi-backed government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi blamed the Houthis for the attacks.

“The killing of children is appalling. Children should be protected at all times,” said Philippe Duamelle, UNICEF representative to Yemen, suggesting that the death toll could be higher.

A spokesman for the Houthis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last November, military sources said that five Yemeni children were injured in shelling carried out by the Iranian-backed Houthi group on a residential neighbourhood in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taiz.

According to Save the Children, more than 600 civilians have been killed or wounded in the strategic port city of Hudaydah in the first ten months of 2020.

Yemen is in the midst of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. The war is now over five years long and has left 12.3 million children in need of assistance.

READ: UN says 233,000 killed in Yemen war in last 6 years

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.