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Artillery shelling kills six civilians in Al Hudaydah [EN/AR]

Pays
Yémen
Sources
UN RC/HC Yemen
Date de publication

Sana’a, 5 December 2020 – Preliminary reports indicate that on 3 December artillery shelling hit Thabet Brothers Industrial Complex in Al Hudaydah City, killing six civilian workers and injuring ten others. The Thabet Brothers Complex is located in Al Hali District, to the east of Al Hudaydah City.

“This is yet another senseless attack killing and injuring so many civilians within the span of one week,” said Mr. Laurent Bukera, Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen a.i. “We share our deepest condolences with the families of those who had been killed and wish those injured a full and quick recovery.”

This is the second attacking causing multiple civilian deaths and injuries in Al Hudaydah within a week – and the third across Yemen. On 29 November, five children and three women were killed and three children and three women were injured when artillery shells hit a house in Al Ghaza village in Ad Durayhimi District of Al Hudaydah. In Taizz Governorate, artillery shelling on residential areas in the east of Taizz City on 30 November killed two children and injured three children and four women.

Hostilities in Al Hudaydah Governorate have escalated in recent months. The Protection Cluster reported a spike in civilian casualties in October and November, with 49 fatalities and injuries recorded across the governorate in November, and 74 fatalities and injuries recorded in October.

“The parties to the conflict should stop indiscriminate attacks on civilians which are in clear violation of international humanitarian law,” said Mr. Bukera. “Instead, they should be focusing on saving millions of Yemenis from looming famine.”

The new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, which was just released, indicates that pockets of famine-like conditions have already returned to Yemen for the first time in two years. It warns that the numbers of people facing Phase 4 food insecurity – those in the emergency phase and on the precipice of falling into famine – will increase from 3.6 million to 5 million people. The analysis also finds that over half of Yemen’s population will be facing crisis levels of food insecurity (Phase 3+) by mid-2021.

Yemen remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Nearly 80 per cent of the population – over 24 million people – require some form of humanitarian assistance and protection. By the end of November, only US$1.6 billion of the US$3.2 billion needed in 2020 had been received.