The UN have condemned an attack that’s believed to have killed at least 22 people and injured more than 30 more in Yemen’s northern Hajjah Governorate.
The dead have reportedly included 12 children and 10 women and the injured at least 14 children. Both sides in the conflict have blamed the other.
Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, condemned the deaths and injuries “unequivocally”, saying it was “outrageous that innocent civilians continue to die needlessly in a conflict that should, and can be solved”.
Grande said that a higher proportion of people in Yemen are hungry and suffering than in any other country with Hajjah one of the worst-hit provinces. More than a million people are hungry in the province and thousands of new cholera cases have been reported.
“We fear that thousands of civilians are trapped between the parties and lack the basic services they need to survive,” Grande said.
Almost 80 per cent of Yemen’s population of 24.1 million require some form of humanitarian aid in what is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Ten million people are described as a “step away” from famine and seven million people are malnourished.
The conflict in Yemen between the government and Houthi rebels, escalated in 2015 when a Saudi Arabian-led coalition intervened in support of the government.