Study: Minors make up 25% of Yemen’s civilian casualties  

Over the past three years, children have made up a quarter of civilian casualties in Yemen’s war, Save the Children announced yesterday.

The organisation said that there were 2,341 confirmed child casualties between 2018 and 2020, adding that the actual number of casualties was “likely to be much higher”.

“Yemeni children have been living through a horrific and endless nightmare for six years now,” the organisation’s Country Director, Xavier Joubert, said, noting that children were continuing to be “killed and injured on a near-daily basis.”

Joubert warned that children were at daily risk of “death or injury if they venture outside and get caught up in the frequent shelling and bombing of places where they should feel safe – homes, schools, hospitals, and marketplaces.”

The humanitarian official called on all the warring parties “to fully implement a ceasefire as soon as possible,” stressing that it was the “only way to truly end this humanitarian catastrophe.”

READ: UN official says one woman dies every two hours in Yemen

On Saturday, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reported that eight children were killed and 33 others wounded in March “only”.

Impoverished Yemen has been mired in conflict since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 to restore the internationally-recognised government which had lost control of the capital Sanaa.

The war has killed more than 100,000 people and led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with millions on the brink of famine, according to UN data.