2,200 children killed: UN

The UN yesterday slammed the devastating impact of Yemen's three-year conflict on children, with some 2,200 minors killed, and many more going hungry, forced to fight or dying from preventable diseases.

“The relentless conflict in Yemen has pushed a country already on the brink deep into the abyss,” warned Henrietta Fore, the executive director of the UN children's agency.

Fore, who has just returned from a visit to the war-ravaged country, said in a statement she had seen “what three years of intense war after decades of underdevelopment and chronic global indifference can do to children.”

Nearly 10,000 people have died since a Saudi-led military coalition began fighting in Yemen in 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government to power after Iran-linked Huthi rebels took over Sanaa the year before.

Unicef said yesterday that at least 2,200 children had been killed and 3,400 others injured.

“These are only numbers we have been able to verify. The actual figures could be even higher,” Fore said, insisting that “there is no justification for this carnage.”

But conflict deaths and injuries are only one part of the suffering inflicted on Yemen's children.

Fore pointed out to journalists in Geneva that millions of children were out of school and many were being forced to fight with different sides in the conflict.

Others were being married off, going hungry and dying from preventable diseases like cholera, she said.

Children make up half of the some 22 million people in Yemen who rely on humanitarian aid to survive.

Meanwhile, Yemeni government forces backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have bombarded rebel positions outside Hodeida after pausing their push into the strategic Red Sea port city, government sources said yesterday.