OMM Redaksiyası
Nearly 130,000 people, including 71,000 children, have been displaced in Yemen over the past three weeks as conflict has intensified, UNICEF said on Friday, warning that hunger and displacement are increasing risks for children.
Most of those forced from their homes were displaced from or within the southwestern governorate of Taiz, UNICEF’s country representative in Yemen, Akhil Iyer, told reporters in Geneva.
“Conflict is driving hunger, and hunger makes children even more vulnerable to conflict,” Iyer said.
Malnutrition worsens among displaced children
In recent weeks, UNICEF mobile nutrition teams have screened nearly 2,900 children in areas where the agency has safe humanitarian access. More than one in four were found to be acutely malnourished, including about 200 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
Across Yemen, more than 2.2 million children under the age of five are projected to experience acute malnutrition this year. More than half a million of them are expected to face severe acute malnutrition, Iyer said.
Conflict disrupts education and causes casualties
UNICEF has verified that at least 15 children were killed and 14 injured in the conflict since early September, while three children remain missing, according to Iyer.
The escalation has also disrupted education. Over the past three weeks, 243 schools have closed or suspended classes, affecting nearly 140,000 students.
“We cannot keep asking children to survive what they should have never been exposed to in the first place,” Iyer said, urging all parties to protect children, civilians and civilian infrastructure, comply with international humanitarian law and ensure safe, unimpeded humanitarian access.
