UN report documents over 1400 violations against children in Yemen… Details
The conflict in Yemen has resulted in a devastating toll among the country’s children, and a UN team documented more than 1,400 cases of grave violations against children in the country in the first 9 months of 2022, nearly half of them in areas controlled by Houthi militias, resulting in more than 400 dead and wounded children.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a recent report on the humanitarian situation in Yemen: The UN Country Task Force documented a total of 1,449 incidents of grave violations against children by various parties to the conflict between January and September 2022, 94% of which were verified.
He added that most of the documented and verified violations were in areas under the control of the Houthi group, and that after 645 cases, they were distributed to the governorates of Amanat Al Asmara 210, Al Hodeidah 236 and Saada 199, which represents 47% of the total cases recorded during the reporting period.
Verified violations include denial of humanitarian access to 884 children and incidents targeting 427 children, resulting in the deaths of 127 children; 16 girls, 111 boys, and 300 injured; 76 girls and 224 boys by the various parties to the conflict.
The report also documented 77 cases of recruitment and use of children in military action; two girls, 75 boys, 3 cases of rape and sexual violence (one girl and two boys), and 12 cases of abduction and arbitrary detention; one girl, 11 boys, and 18 attacks on 4 schools and 14 hospitals were verified.
The Yemeni human rights organization, Mayyun, announced last September that militias were holding 400 children in their camp in the city of Saleh in Taiz province, and that they are preparing to transfer them to Dhamar province. This disclosure came after the organization exerted efforts to track the fate of another child who was kidnapped by militias from the directorate of Al Husha in Dhale province.
According to the organization; “The militias rallied the children after promising them and their families, enticing them with money, weapons, and food aid, and they were being prepared to be transferred to a so-called Fourth Military District camp in Dhamar Governorate.”
Houthi militias then continued to mobilize, including child soldiers, despite a UN-brokered truce in place since early April; This is part of the numerous violations it has committed on various provinces and battlefronts.
According to the Yemeni government, Houthi militias have recruited more than 40,000 children since they turned against the sharia on September 21, 2014, until 2022.
