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Over 2,000 children killed, injured in conflict of Yemen, UN relief warns

Xinhua, March 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

More than 2,000 children have been killed and injured in Yemen since an all-out civil war broke out in September 2014, a senior UN official said here Thursday.

Stephen O'Brien, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said that more than 90 children have been killed so far this year alone, while speaking to the UN Security Council by video teleconference on Thursday.

He said that air strikes and random shelling of civilians constitute the unlawful conduct of hostilities.

"It is unacceptable that medical facilities and schools are being hit," said O'Brien, who is also the UN emergency relief coordinator.

The senior UN official noted the delays impeding the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Yemen, due to restrictions placed both by the Yemeni government and its allies and by the Houthis.

He called once more on all parties to allow timely and unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance

The UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism has been instituted and nominations for its steering committee will be finalized this week, allowing it to commence operations this month, he said.

The Security Council later went into closed consultations to discuss Yemen further, Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here, adding that the council members heard an update from UN Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who also briefed by video eleconference.

On Saturday, warplanes of the Saudi-led Arab coalition launched airstrikes that mistakenly hit a public market in the northeastern parts of Yemen's capital Sanaa, killing about 45 civilians.

The Saudi-led coalition started daily air bombing on the Shiite Houthi rebels and their allied forces since March 2015, vowing to drive out the rebels and retrieve Sanaa

Yemen has been mired in an all-out civil war since September 2014, when the Shiite Houthi group backed by forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh invaded the capital Sanaa and drove President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.

The war has killed nearly 6,000 people. Endit