Yemen Crisis Deepens: 57,000 Children Displaced in Just Two Weeks
Since Sept. 3, over 104,000 people have been displaced—including more than 57,000 children—as clashes intensified across western Taiz, southern Al-Hudaydah, Marib and other regions, according to the UN children's agency.
At least nine children have been killed and 12 injured since the latest escalation began, UNICEF said, while three more children were reported missing after an attack targeted the road connecting Yemen's western coast to Aden.
The renewed violence has also crippled access to basic services. Twenty-six UNICEF-supported health facilities have reported disruptions, and 243 schools have either shut down or suspended classes, affecting more than 137,000 students.
"Children in Yemen were already living through one of the world's most grave humanitarian crises," said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
"Now, tens of thousands of families have been forced from their homes in just two weeks," he added, warning that the fresh violence was "eroding what little stability" children had left after years of conflict, hunger, displacement and disrupted schooling.
UNICEF said it is scaling up its emergency response to reach as many as 231,000 people affected by the escalation. The agency is supporting health facilities, distributing hygiene kits and water tanks in Taiz, delivering additional water and hygiene supplies in Marib, and redeploying nine health and nutrition mobile teams to displacement sites and affected communities in Aden, Marib and Taiz. Emergency water and sanitation efforts are expected to reach more than 200,000 people with safe water, hygiene supplies and urgent repairs to damaged infrastructure.
The fallout has spread beyond Yemen's borders, too. More than 2,000 people, many of them children, have arrived in Djibouti after perilous crossings of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait marked by extreme heat, dehydration and serious protection risks, UNICEF said.
Even before this latest wave of violence, roughly 12.2 million children in Yemen required humanitarian assistance, according to UNICEF. More than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, including over 515,000 suffering from severe acute malnutrition, while 3.2 million school-aged children remain out of school. Around 17.8 million people lack adequate access to health care, water and sanitation, with only 60% of health facilities fully operational, the agency said.
UNICEF reiterated the UN secretary-general's call for all parties to the conflict to protect civilians, including children, comply with international humanitarian law, and allow safe, unhindered humanitarian access.
Yemen has been gripped by conflict since the Houthis seized Sanaa and several provinces in September 2014, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government.
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