19 Children among Civilians Killed in Recent Saudi Strike against Yemen: UN
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Nineteen children were among at least 31 civilians killed in Saudi-led airstrikes on northern Yemen last week, the United Nations said on Thursday.
"UNICEF is sad to confirm that the recent attack in Al-Jawf, north of Yemen, on February 15, took the lives of 19 children (eight boys and 11 girls) and injured another 18 (nine boys and another nine girls)," the UN children's agency said in a statement, AFP reported.
"It was an attack on a civilian-populated area where children were in the vicinity," UNICEF regional communications chief Juliette Touma said.
Saturday's airstrikes came after the Yemeni army shot down an aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition in Jawf.
UNICEF urged the warring sides to put an end to the conflict, adding that the "worrying escalation of violence over the past few weeks is a harsh reminder that children in Yemen continue to carry the heaviest burden of the conflict".
Yemeni air defense units managed to target and shoot down a Saudi fighter jet of Tornado type in the skies of Jawf in retaliation for the Riyadh regime’s ongoing aggression against the Arab country.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past nearly five years.
The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.