,rHouthi mines and attacks caused the death and injury of about 700 civilians during the four months of the UN-brokered truce in Yemen, according to international and local reports.
This came amid fears that the number of victims would rise due to recent heavy rains that have carried hundreds of mines into roads and farms in several Yemeni areas.
In its latest report, Save the Children said that 689 civilians were killed or injured in the four months of the truce from April 2 until July 27 from Houthi shelling and landmines. It said 217 civilians were killed, including 120 children, and 472 were injured including 88 children.
Save the Children added that an increase in armed violence in the last month of the truce in Yemen resulted in 232 civilian casualties, including 57 children, with the last week of July being the bloodiest in years with over 65 civilian casualties, including 38 children.
“Children in Yemen deserve sincere and earnest efforts to ensure the complete cessation of violence, re-opening roads in Taiz, as well as full, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access to all Yemenis across the country,” it said.
Save the Children’s Country Director for Yemen Rama Hansraj said that “words fail when trying to describe the amount of suffering and hardship that has been endured by children in Yemen for over seven years of an unforgiving war that has taken a terrible toll on their lives and the future of their country.”
She stressed that in April, everyone was thrilled to hear the news about the truce and the extension in June brought hope for a long-term resolution to the conflict.
However, Hansraj added that last week’s news of such a sharp increase of civilian casualties came as a grim reminder that children are still far from safe as long as the war has not officially ended.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni Landmine Monitor, a non-governmental organization concerned with monitoring mine victims, said that during the four months of the truce, it documented 168 civilian casualties as a result of mines planted by the Houthi militia in several Yemeni governorates.
The Monitor said that from April 2 until August 1, Houthi mines in Hodeidah, Taiz, Hajjah, Al-Bayda, Saada, Al-Jawf, Marib, Lahj and in the Nihm Sharqi district in Sanaa, killed 57 civilians, including 28 children and 4 women, while it wounded 111 civilians, including 47 children and 8 women.
The NGO renewed its call to the United Nations and the international community to exert pressure on the Houthi militia to hand over mine maps and support demining teams and explosive devices, including urgent support for clearing populated and agricultural areas that were recently contaminated by torrential rains.
For its part, the Yemeni Army in the Taiz governorate said it monitored 3,437 Houthi violations of the truce on the various fronts of the governorate since its entry into force last April, killing 17 soldiers, and wounding 104 others.
It also documented 54 Houthi infiltration attempts and 1,836 attacks, including 511 sniping operations, 406 artillery shelling, 504 reconnaissance operations by drones, and 135 targeting by booby-trapped aircraft.
In a separate development, King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) Project (Masam) for clearing mines in Yemen, dismantled, during the last week of July 2022, a total of 934 mines planted by the Houthi militia across Yemen, including 37 anti-personnel mines, 269 anti-tank mines, 624 unexploded ordnance and 4 explosive devices.
Since the beginning of the project, as many as 352,315 mines have been dismantled, it said.
