115 CHILDREN KILLED IN YEMEN DURING WAR: UN
New York, 5 Rajab 1436/24 April 2015 (MINA) – The Saudi aggression against Yemen has claimed the lives of more than 100 children over the past month, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The UN body’s spokesman Christophe Boulierac said Friday that at least 115 children have been killed in Yemen since March 26, which marked the start of the Saudi aggression on the Arab country.
The UN official said the death toll may be much higher as “checks are still in progress” on the ground and the UNICEF is using a conservative methodology for verifying the fatality figures, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
“We believe that these are conservative figures,” Boulierac told reporters in Geneva, adding that at least 64 of the children were killed directly as a result of the air strikes carried out by Saudi warplanes.
He also said that 26 children have been killed in explosions triggered by ammunitions and mines, adding that at least 172 children have been mutilated in the conflict.
Meanwhile, UNICEF representative in Yemen Julien Harneis said in a statement, “There are hundreds of thousands of children in Yemen who continue to live in the most dangerous circumstances, many waking up scared in the middle of the night to the sounds of bombing and gunfire,”
“The number of child casualties shows clearly how devastating this conflict continues to be for the country’s children,” he said.
On Friday, Saudi warplanes bombed the airport in the southwestern Yemeni city of Ta’izz. The airstrikes on a street in the city killed at least six people.
Saudi Arabia launched its air campaign against Yemen on March 26 – without a United Nations mandate – in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and to restore power to the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
Late on Tuesday, Riyadh announced the end of the first phase of its unlawful military operation, which claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people in 27 days. However, sporadic airstrikes have continued with Saudi bombers targeting Houthi positions across the Arab country over the past two days. (T/P002/R03)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
