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UNICEF: Yemen War Claims Lives of 1,400 Children | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Salem Abdullah Musabih, 6, is held by his mother as she sits on a bed at a malnutrition intensive care unit at a hospital in the Red Sea port city of Hodaida, Yemen. File photo. © Abduljabbar Zeyad / Reuters


London- Nearly 1,400 children have been killed during the war in Yemen, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“Around 1,400 children were killed and over 2,140 others have been injured. The actual numbers are likely to be much higher,” UNICEF representative in Yemen Meritxell Relano said in a statement.

More than 7,000 people have been killed in Yemen, including children, the report stated.

The conflict left around 26 million Yemeni people in a miserable health and humanitarian condition and deprived more than two thirds of getting required medical care while food became less accessible.

The Saudi-led coalition accuses rebels of mobilizing children and women whether in Yemeni battlefronts or at the Saudi borders.

Human rights institutions also monitor in monthly reports the violations of rebels since seizing the state’s administration in September 2014.

General Ahmad Asiri, the coalition’s spokesman, said in previous statements that militias are exploiting children in return for essential needs such as food and modest salary. Asiri highlighted the role of the international society and humanitarian organizations in taking procedures to put an end to this situation.

UNICEF revealed that children are the major victims of the ongoing conflict – malnutrition and diseases are causing the loss of one Yemeni child every ten minutes.

Another 1.7 million children suffer from moderate acute malnutrition with severe acute malnutrition affecting 462,000 children, the report claimed.

Furthermore, “More than 487,000 children received social and psychological support to help them overcome consequences of the conflict,” Relano added.

She called for halting mobilization and providing unconditional accessibility of humanitarian aid for children all over the country, including zones that are isolated due to the conflict.