United Nations, May 15 (UNI) “Fifteen million children in Yemen are asking you to save their lives” the head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has told the 15 members of the Security Council, in an impassioned plea for action to end four years of fighting which has left at least 7,300 children killed or seriously injured.
“These are verified numbers. The actual numbers are no doubt higher”, on Wednesday said Henrietta Fore, who began her address with a quiet intensity, telling the horrifying but tragically now mundane story of how one classroom was shattered by shrapnel last month in the capital Sana’a: “Imagine the pain endured by the families of the 14 children who never made it home...In any conflict, children suffer first. And worst.”
Each day, as a Yemeni Government coalition fights for control of the country against Houthi rebel forces, “another eight children will be killed, injured or recruited”, she said, with a child dying from a preventable cause, every ten minutes.