Yemen, every day boys and girls have been victims of war in these 11 months of 2022

SANA’A (AsiaNews) – Since the beginning of the year, every day in Yemen, due to the war, a child “has died or been seriously injured”. The dramatic data on the violence caused by the conflict against minors is contained in the latest report, published these days, by the international NGO Save The Children according to which at least 330 children were killed or injured in 220 years. To these “direct” victims we must then add those who died from lack of food, drinking water, medicines or from diseases that are spreading with increasing incidence.

The truce reduced the number of casualties. The data on dead or injured children, already high, could have been even worse, given that for six months the country held up a fragile truce reached by the parties with international mediation and which spared further carnage. “Before the truce – 14-year-old Diana from Taiz told activists – we were always on the alert, thinking that a rocket could have fallen at any moment. We were never safe. With the respite, we felt a bit more relaxed playing outside, as well as going to school and studying.” Nonetheless, even today there is still “every day” at least one dead or injured minor, a “collateral” victim of the conflict.

The air strikes, the artillery, the mortars, the anti-personnel mines. According to the data contained in the Civil Impact Monitoring Projectelaborated byYemeni Protection Group and relaunched by the activist NGO, between 1 January and 15 November 2022 there were 333 affected children: of these 92 died and another 241 were seriously injured. The extensive use of air strikes, artillery, mortars, anti-personnel mines and other means related to the conflict “has caused enormous damage to children” says the NGO, causing “deaths, injuries and permanent disabilities for the rest of their lives and the thinking destruction of civilian infrastructure”.

“We have to listen to the voices of children.” Rama Hensraj, director Save the Children in Yemen, calls on the international community to take action to end impunity for heinous crimes, especially those committed against children. There can be no “justification”, she adds, for “death or violence” against minors and “the world must act” to stop the escalation of this violence. “We must listen – he concludes – to the voices of children and work alongside them to allow them to build a better future”.

From 2014 to today, 400 thousand victims. The conflict flared up in 2014 as an internal clash between pro-Tehran Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabian-backed government officials; over the months it has escalated into open war with the intervention, in March 2015, of Riyadh at the head of a coalition of Arab nations and has recorded almost 400 thousand victims in recent years. According to the UN, it has caused the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world”, on which Covid-19 has had “devastating” effects; millions of people are on the verge of starvation and children – 11 thousand dead in the conflict – will suffer the consequences for decades. There are over three million internally displaced persons, most of whom live in conditions of extreme poverty, hunger and epidemics of various kinds, not least that of cholera.