Local Editor

More than 500 children had been killed since the upsurge in violence in Yemen in March, while some 1.7 million youths are at risk of malnutrition, the United Nations [UN] said on Friday.

During the six months since Saudi-led airstrikes were carried out in Yemen in late March, at least 505 children have died and 702 have been injured, spokesman for the UN children’s agency, Christophe Boulierac, said.

"These are conservative figures", he told reporters in Switzerland’s Geneva.

He said the children were being killed in the bombing campaigns but also amid street fighting.

"The situation for children is deteriorating every single day, and it is horrific", Boulierac said, urging all parties with influence to bring an urgent end to the violence.

He also lamented a sharp increase in the recruitment of children as fighters in the war-ravaged country, with 606 verified cases so far this year [2015]. That is four times the 156 cases verified in 2014, he said.

"Children in Yemen are being used by armed groups, manning checkpoints or carrying arms", he said.

In the impoverished country, where 80 percent of the population is under 18, some 10 million children are in desperate need of humanitarian aid, Boulierac further said.

He warned that the dire humanitarian situation, along with underfunding of aid organisations and difficulty accessing those in need could prove deadlier for Yemen’s children and the violence.

"We know that more children [could] die from preventable disease than from bullets and bombs", he said.

The nutrition situation, which already before the conflict was dire in Yemen, has meanwhile worsened significantly, he said, pointing out that 1.7 million children were at risk of malnutrition.

The number of children under five at risk of severe acute malnutrition has tripled this year [2015] to 537,000, up from 160,000 before the conflict, Boulierac also warned.

The UN says at least 2,355 civilians have been killed in Yemen’s conflict since late March, and another 4,862 injured, Colville said.

Some 1.4 million people have meanwhile been forced to flee their homes.

This is while a European-backed resolution calling for a UN investigation into rights abuses committed during the conflict was withdrawn recently this week due to pressure from Saudi Arabia. The Dutch-drafted UN rights council proposal had called for a full inquiry into violations in Yemen since September 2014.