More than 1,000 children have been killed or injured in months of brutal conflict in Yemen since March, the United Nations [UN] children’s agency UNICEF said on Wednesday.
Nearly 400 children have been killed and more than 600 wounded - an average of eight casualties every day - since the conflict escalated four months ago, according to UNICEF.
A Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States has been carrying out a military aggression on Yemen by launching airstrikes against the country since March 26. The airstrikes have not been authorized by the UN.
"This conflict is a particular tragedy for Yemeni children," said UNICEF Representative in Yemen, Julien Harneis. "They are being killed by bombs or bullets, and those that survive face the growing threat of disease and malnutrition. This cannot be allowed to continue".
"Children are bearing the brunt of a brutal armed conflict which escalated in March this year and shows no sign of a resolution," the UN agency said.
Disrupted health services, increased levels of child malnutrition, closed schools and higher numbers of children recruited by fighting groups are among the effects of the conflict now ravaging the country, the study, Yemen: Childhood Under Threat, finds.
As devastating as the conflict is for the lives of children right now, it will have terrifying consequences for their future, it warns.
The UN agency further added that nearly 10 million children - 80 per cent of the country’s under-18 population - are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance across the country. More than 1.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
A quarter of Yemen’s health facilities - around 900 - have closed since March, while shortages of medicines and medical supplies have disrupted those that remain open, according to the UN body, which said that the health system was "crumbling."
Furthermore, more than 2.5 million children under the age of 15 are at risk of contracting measles, while nearly 2 million are likely to suffer from malnutrition this year [2015], almost one million more than in 2014, UNICEF said.
The ’civilian’ death toll in Yemen has risen to at least 1,916, with another 4,186 civilians wounded since the escalation of the conflict in March, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [OHCHR] reported recently this month [August].
