The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that around 30 percent of fighters in Yemen armed groups are minors, according to Julien Harneis, UNICEF’s representative in Yemen.
“We are seeing children in battle, at checkpoints, and unfortunately among [those] killed and injured,” Harneis told AFP Thursday.
The UN’s children’s rights agency has verified 77 dead and 44 wounded amongst Yemen’s children – though Harneis believes the true number of child casualties to be much higher. “All of the parties to the conflict are to blame,” he told AFP.
UNICEF officials predict the crisis in Yemen will increase the country’s already staggeringly high malnutrition rate, which was nearly 50 percent last year, according to Harneis.
UNICEF hopes to send a plane to Sanaa carrying clean drinking water as well as hygiene and medical supplies, Harneis told AFP.
