UN: 10,000 Children Killed Or Maimed During Yemen’s Long War

More than 10,000 children in Yemen have been killed or injured in violence linked to years of war in the impoverished country, according to a spokesman for UNICEF on Tuesday.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters that the verified tally from the United Nations’ reporting and monitoring operation is surely an undercount of the real toll because many more child deaths and injuries go unrecorded.

He said the new numbers amount to four children killed or maimed every day, a “shameful milestone” since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in the war in 2015.

The U.N. has long considered Yemen as home to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The country on the Arabian Peninsula faces the combined troubles of protracted conflict, economic devastation, and crumbling social and health services, as well as underfunded U.N. assistance programs.

More than four in five children require humanitarian assistance, which amounts to some 11 million kids, UNICEF says.

According to the U.N. figures, a total of 3,455 children were killed and more than 6,600 injured in the fighting in Yemen between March 15, 2015 and Sept. 30 this year.

Aside from the violence, Elder said many Yemenis are starving not because of a lack of food but from a lack of money to buy it.

Overall, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, or ACLED, has estimated that some 130,000 people have died in the war in Yemen.