Saudi War on Yemen Has Killed Over 3k Children: Rights Group

By Staff, Agencies

A human rights group said the nearly eight-year long Saudi-led war on Yemen claimed the lives of more than 3,000 children.

In a report released on Sunday, the Yemeni Coalition to Monitor Human Rights Violations, also known as ‘Rasad’ Coalition, said it had documented the killing of 3,182 children, including 2,795 males and 387 females, in various regions.

The children lost their lives due to relentless enemy bombardment against 20 provinces, the group said.

According to the report, 250 children were killed by live bullets and over 150 by landmine explosions. Nine children were killed under torture.

More than 2,800 children have been injured. They have no access to medical facilities for treatment, the monitoring group said.

In October 2021, the United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, said 10,000 Yemeni children had been killed or maimed since the regime in Riyadh launched the war in March 2015. A total of 11 million kids need humanitarian assistance, with 400,000 of whom suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

International rights groups have said time and again that killing of children amounts to war crime.

The Saudi-led coalition has on several occasions admitted to making mistakes due to technical errors or bad intelligence. In some incidents, the coalition has denied responsibility.

No international investigation has taken place into war crimes committed by the coalition.

The United States and certain Western countries have not stopped supporting the coalition with intelligence, logistics and whopping arms deals.

The war’s objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen. The coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives.

And the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.