Renewed fighting in Yemen has displaced more than 57,000 children in the past two weeks, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), worsening an already severe humanitarian crisis after more than a decade of conflict. The agency said other children have been killed, injured or reported missing.
Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said children had already endured hunger, displacement and disrupted schooling. He warned that the latest violence was further reducing the limited stability available to them.
The conflict between Yemeni government forces, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, and Iran-backed Houthi militia began in 2014. Yemen had experienced relative calm after a UN-backed truce in 2022, but the latest escalation has forced families to leave their homes across governorates including Taiz, Hudaydah and Marib.
UNICEF said at least nine children had been reported killed and 12 injured since 3 September after an attack on a road connecting Yemen’s western coast with Aden. Three other children were reported missing. Fighting has also disrupted services at 26 health facilities supported by the agency, while 243 schools have closed or suspended classes, affecting more than 137,000 students.
The agency is expanding its emergency response to reach up to 231,000 people. It has supported health facilities and distributed water tanks and hygiene supplies in Taiz and Marib, while nine health and nutrition mobile teams have been redeployed to displacement sites and affected communities in Aden, Marib and Taiz. Emergency teams are also planning water and sanitation assistance for more than 200,000 people.
UNICEF said its child protection teams were providing psychosocial care and case management, including for unaccompanied and separated children, as well as warning communities about unexploded ordnance. It is also working with authorities in Djibouti, where more than 2,000 people, many of them children, have arrived after crossing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.