According to a statement issued by the United Nations Children’s Agency on Saturday, more than 11,000 children have been killed or wounded in Yemen’s civil war, with the “true toll of this conflict likely to be higher.”
According to AFP, UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell stated, “Thousands of children have lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands more remain at risk of death from preventable disease or starvation.”
Yemen’s war erupted in 2014, when Houthi-backed rebels captured the capital Sanaa, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene and install a government the following year.
According to UNICEF, over 2.2 million children in Yemen are acutely malnourished, with a quarter of them being under the age of five. The majority of them are also at risk of Cholera, measles, and other diseases that can be readily avoided with immunizations.
According to the research, hundreds of thousands of children have died since the beginning of the war, either directly as a result of clashes or indirectly as a result of a lack of safe drinking water, food, and disease epidemics.
According to UNICEF’s most recent figures, 3,774 children died between March 2015 and September 2022. Furthermore, the organization claims that over the last eight years, 3,904 boys and 90 females have been recruited into the fighting.
“If the children of Yemen are to have any chance of a decent future… all those with influence must ensure they are protected and supported,” said Russell as the agency appealed for a $484.4 million funding to tackle the humanitarian crisis plaguing the country.