Date: Aug 19, 2015
Source: The Daily Star
More than 1,000 children killed, wounded in Yemen conflict: UN
Reuters
LONDON: Months of brutal conflict in Yemen have killed or injured more than 1,000 children, and the number of young people recruited or used as fighters has soared, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said Wednesday.

Some 400 children have been killed and more than 600 injured - an average of eight casualties every day - since fighting escalated at the end of March, according to UNICEF.

A Saudi-led Arab coalition has been bombarding the Iranian-allied Houthi rebel movement - Yemen's dominant force - since late March in a bid to reinstate exiled President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Riyadh.

The war has killed more than 4,300 people, many of them civilians, and spread disease and hunger throughout the country.

More than 1.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes since March, and nearly 10 million children - 80 percent of the country's under-18 population - need urgent humanitarian aid, UNICEF said in a report released Wednesday.

"Children are bearing the brunt of a brutal armed conflict which escalated in March this year and shows no sign of a resolution," the U.N. agency said.

"This conflict is a particular tragedy for Yemeni children ... (they) are being killed by bombs or bullets and those that survive face the growing threat of disease and malnutrition," UNICEF Yemen representative Julien Harneis said.

The report Yemen: Childhood Under Threat said the number of children recruited or used in the conflict had more than doubled to 377 so far in 2015 from 156 in 2014.

All warring sides in Yemen are increasingly using teenage boys - who see fighting as a way to support their families financially - to swell their ranks, UNICEF said.

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 U.N. body, which said the health system was "crumbling."

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, almost one million more than in 2014, UNICEF said.

"I would sell everything I have to ensure my children's wellbeing... what really disturbs me is how difficult it has become to get proper medical treatment," Umm Faisal, mother of an 18-month-old baby in Yemen, told UNICEF.

Houthis ambush pro-Hadi forces, kill scores

CAIRO: Yemeni rebels ambushed pro-government forces in the south Tuesday, setting off a major battle that killed 65 anti-rebel forces and handed them their first serious setback following a series of recent advances, officials said.

The officials said 15 Houthi rebels were killed in the fighting near the Aqaba Tharaa area, where anti-rebel forces were advancing from Abyan into Bayda province.

The officials, who hailed from both sides of the conflict, said the rebels destroyed at least eight armored vehicles and four tanks, which were left burning. The officials said both sides were rushing reinforcements to the area, with the Houthis attempting to squeeze the pocket closed and their opponents attempting to break out.

Dozens of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition opposing the rebels hit the mountainous area, but had yet to open up the rebels’ positions.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The Saudi-backed groups fighting the Houthis and their allies have made rapid gains in the south in recent weeks, after taking the southern port city of Aden in July. Using Aden as a resupply point, they have moved forces, including Saudi-trained Yemenis and armored units, northward, seizing Shabwa province from the rebels last weekend.

In the west, the officials and witness said Saudi-led airstrikes hit several warehouses in the coastal city of Hudaida, leaving them in flames after weapons stores went off.

The Houthis have meanwhile taken control of the United Arab Emirates embassy in the capital Sanaa, prompting condemnation from Emirati and Egyptian authorities. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry Tuesday urged the Houthis to withdraw from the premises following the seizure Sunday. The Emirates, along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar, have also condemned the takeover of the embassy. All are part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been bombing the Houthi rebels and their allies since March.

Earlier Tuesday, a leading international rights group said that all sides fighting in Yemen have left a “trail of civilian death and destruction” in the conflict, killing scores of innocent people in what could amount to war crimes.

Amnesty International said the violence has been particularly deadly in the southern cities of Taiz and Aden, with dozens of children among those killed.

“Civilians in southern Yemen have found themselves trapped in a deadly crossfire between Houthi loyalists and anti-Houthi groups on the ground, while facing the persistent threat of coalition airstrikes from the sky. All the parties to this conflict have displayed a ruthless and wanton disregard for the safety of civilians,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser.

“The report depicts in harrowing detail the gruesome and bloody trail of death and destruction in Taiz and Aden from unlawful attacks, which may amount to war crimes, by all parties,” Amnesty said.

Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern that both the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi-allied forces were violating the laws of war and not doing enough to prevent or minimize civilian casualties.

Amnesty has previously said that evidence suggested the Houthis carried out indiscriminate mortar attacks on civilians and repeatedly targeted medical workers and facilities in Aden.

The coalition has denied targeting civilians. “I don’t think they have a very accurate report. They never contacted us to ask any clarification for any situation,” Saudi-led coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asseri said, adding that some of the strikes Amnesty attributed to the coalition were in fact Houthi missiles.

In Tuesday’s report, Amnesty catalogued a series of incidents involving both air and ground operations. During its June-July research mission to Yemen, Amnesty investigated eight airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, which hit heavily populated areas mostly with no nearby military targets, killing at least 141 civilians and wounding 101 others, mostly women and children.

The group said it also investigated dozens of incidents of ground combat, where both sides routinely used weapons such as Grad-type rockets, mortars and artillery shells in densely populated residential areas. In Aden and Taiz, it said at least 68 civilians were killed and 99 wounded in such attacks.

One of the deadliest attacks was on July 19, when the Houthis and their allies shelled the Dar Saad neighborhood of Aden, killing 45 people, mostly civilians, Amnesty said.

Earlier this month, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that at least 1,916 civilians have died in the Yemen conflict since it escalated on March 26.