Children Killed In Yemen Since March, Says UNICEF

War-torn Yemen is on the brink of famine, with millions of women and children most at risk of starvation as fighting around major ports stalls imports of food and other humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.

They were killed during an air strike that injured 20 others.

Cousin said she had met mothers who were only able to give their children tea in the morning and bread and sugar in the evening. Working after hours, they had brought their children with them, some of whom were playing outside when the bomb exploded.

“A selfless activity, turned in a moment into senseless bloodshed”, he said.

The civil war has killed more than 4,300 people and caused a humanitarian crisis. The report pointed out that across the country, almost 10 million children, 80 percent of the country’s under-18 population, are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. “Overall, around 1.8 million children are likely to suffer from some form of malnutrition in Yemen in this year alone – a total increase of nearly one million children from 2014”.

The operation, at a cost of 320 million dollars, “would provide nutritional support for children under 2 and pregnant and lactating mothers as well as vulnerably internally displaced people who have left their homes with nothing”, Cousin said.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has taken advantage of Yemen’s chaos to seize the southern port city of Mukalla, capital of the vast Hadramawt province. Sana’a is the capital and is under Ansarullah fighters and Popular Committees control.

Ground battles intensified elsewhere in the central city of Taiz between coalition-backed fighters loyal to exiled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Iranian-allied rebels supported by military forces run by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was forced out of power in 2012 after a yearlong of popular protests.

According to medical sources and the MSF, the Saudi-led coalition retaliated by targeting Houthi positions and unintentionally ended up hitting residential areas in Taiz. O’Brien briefed the Security Council Wednesday on his just completed trip to Yemen, saying he is shocked by what he saw. “Food, medicine and water are all in short supply”, it adds.

Is it time to talk? “Prospects of a political solution are dim”.

Meanwhile, the Yemeni army fired artillery shells on the Saudi military site of Alab in Saudi Arabia’s Dhahran Asir region in retaliation for Riyadh’s unabated military campaign against the Yemeni people.

Loyalist forces, backed by Gulf Arab planes, weapons and training, have been on the offensive since breaking out of Aden last month, claiming a string of gains against the Houthis. As part of the UN, we are active in over 190 countries – more than any other organization.