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Attack on a sports centre in Taizz City kills a man and a child and injures two other children [EN/AR]

Países
Yemen
Fuentes
UN RC/HC Yemen
Fecha de publicación

Sana’a, 13 December 2020 – Preliminary reports indicate that on 12 December, artillery shelling hit a sports centre on the border of Al Qahira and Salh districts in Taizz City, killing a father and his son and injuring two other boys while they were exercising. This is the second time in two weeks that artillery shelling has caused multiple child casualties in Taizz City. The injured boys were taken to Al Thawrah Hospital.

“This is another shameful attack on civilians in Taizz,” said Mr. Philippe Duamelle, Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen a.i. “Children continue to pay the highest price in this conflict, and far too often they are paying with their lives. We extend our deepest condolences to the grieving family and wish the injured children a swift recovery.”

Hostilities in Taizz escalated in late September and since then, there has been indiscriminate shelling of residential areas in the city. Over the past two months, more than 100 civilian casualties, many of them children, have been recorded across Taizz. In an incident on 30 November, shelling killed two children, and injured another three children and four women in Al Qahira District.

“This is one more shocking breach of international humanitarian law,” said Mr. Duamelle. “Once again, we implore the parties to the conflict to abide by their obligations and stop killing and injuring civilians.”

Yemen is facing a real risk of large-scale famine. Pockets of famine-like conditions have re-emerged across the country for the first time in 2 years and 13.5 million people (45 per cent of the population) are already facing acute levels of food insecurity. In the next 6 months, over half the population (16.2 million people) is expected to face acute levels of food insecurity, including 5 million people on the brink of famine and 47,000 in famine- like conditions.

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. As of 13 December, only US$1.65 billion of the US$3.2 billion needed for the humanitarian response in 2020 had been received.