Almost 2,000 Children Die Fighting In Yemen Civil War

Nearly 2,000 children recruited by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group died on the battlefield between 2020 and mid-2021, according to United Nations experts who said children as young as seven years old had been trained in camps as fighters.

- Bel Trew

The damaging report comes as the United Arab Emirates, which is part of a Gulf military coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen, said it had intercepted another Houthi rocket fired at the country early yesterday during a landmark visit by Israel president Isaac Herzog.

It is just the latest in a string of missile attacks by the Iranbacked group on the Gulf state. Two weeks ago a drone-andmissile attack struck an oil facility fuel depot, killing three people and wounding six. South Korean president Moon Jae-in was visiting the UAE at the time.

Over the weekend, UN experts circulated a 303-page document submitted to the UN Security Council which detailed multiple violations of international law during the seven-year conflict in Yemen, including the rampant deployment of child soldiers by Houthis.

The annual report, which also investigated deadly airstrikes by the Gulf coalition on Yemen, said in total it had received a list of 1,968 children, some as young as 10 years old, recruited by the Houthis who died on the battlefield between January 2020 and May 2021. The Houthis have repeatedly denied the formal conscription of children.

The report said that the Houthis had set up summer camps in schools and mosques to recruit child fighters and offer basic military training.