A doctor checks a malnourished child at the malnutrition treating department in Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, on Oct. 17, 2019. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed)
More than 5,000 Yemeni children have been killed or injured since the war erupted between Saudi-backed exiled Yemeni government and Iran-allied Houthi rebels in March 2015, a UNICEF official said Wednesday.
SANAA, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- More than 5,000 Yemeni children have been killed or injured since the war erupted between the Saudi-backed exiled Yemeni government and Iran-allied Houthi rebels in March 2015, the representative of the UNICEF in Yemen said Wednesday.
"The escalating conflict has forced nearly half a million Yemeni children out of school," Sara Beysolow Nyanti told reporters at a press conference following a ceremony in the capital Sanaa to mark the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
"The situation of Yemeni children are very miserable," he said, calling on all Yemeni parties to immediately end the war and move toward peace.
The UNICEF would release updated statistics of the Yemeni child victims of the war in November, Nyanti noted.
An estimated 2 million children in Yemen are currently suffering from acute malnutrition, including 360,000 under five years old, according to recent UNICEF reports.
In the world's worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen, 24.1 million people, or nearly 80 per cent of the population, require some form of humanitarian assistance and protection.
Yemen is suffering a long-running civil war between the government and Houthi rebels, which humanitarians said has brought the country to the brink of famine. ■
