CHILDREN MAKE UP ALMOST HALF OF YEMEN’S DISPLACED PEOPLE: UNICEF

Mon 15 August 2022:

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Sunday that the number of internally displaced persons in Yemen has reached 4.3 million, of whom two million are children. “The conflict is the main driver of displacement in Yemen,” UNICEF said on Twitter.

The UN fund has also warned that children represent 28 per cent of all suspected cholera and acute watery diarrhoea cases in Yemen. Moreover, it pointed out earlier that around two million children in Yemen need treatment for acute malnutrition. Of these, 360,000 are at risk of death.

The UN warns frequently about the worsening situation in Yemen. It said last year that the country is in the grip of the world’s “worst humanitarian crisis“.

Truce for two months

Earlier this month United Nations says Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to renew an existing truce for another two months, the UN envoy has said, despite international pressure for an extended and expanded deal.

The ceasefire initially took effect on April 2 and was extended June 2, despite both sides trading accusations of violating the truce and the failure to lift a years-long blockade of the city of Taiz by the Houthis.

The ceasefire was the first nationwide halt of fighting in the past six years of a conflict that turned into a proxy war between regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Yemen’s civil war erupted in 2014, when the Houthis descended from their northern enclave and took over the capital, forcing the government to flee to the south before its exile in Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try to restore the government to power.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands and caused millions to go hungry.

More than two-thirds of Yemen’s 30 million people need humanitarian aid, a UN official said last month, and the country has been pushed to the brink of famine.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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