By Emma Farge
GENEVA, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Displacement camps and health centres have been attacked during surging violence in Yemen between Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces and Iran-backed Houthis, UN agencies said on Thursday, deploring a growing civilian death toll which includes children.
The latest fighting marks a sharp escalation in Yemen’s civil war, which had largely been frozen since a 2022 truce, as well as a widening of the conflict that has grown out of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Violence has flared along old front lines in recent weeks, including around Taiz as the Houthis swept south along the Red Sea coast, prompting a humanitarian crisis with over 130,000 people displaced and some fleeing to Africa across the Red Sea.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said his office had documented three attacks by Ansar Allah, the formal name for the Houthi movement, on sites for internally displaced people since August.
He said these attacks on August 7, September 7 and September 9 in the Marib region caused dozens of casualties and killed five children.
Overall, Turk’s office has documented the killing of 32 civilians, including 15 children and 3 women, since August in fighting, including drone and missile strikes. They were among 125 people killed or wounded in the latest flareup in the conflict – a figure his office said was likely an undercount due to access constraints and insecurity.
“Civilians are now bearing the brunt of this latest upsurge in fighting,” Turk said in a statement.
The World Health Organization said some health facilities had been “directly attacked” and an ambulance driver and a medic were killed in Lahj on September 18, without attributing blame.
INFLUX OF DISPLACED CAUSES NEW ACUTE AID SHORTAGES
Both sides allege that hundreds have been killed in fighting over the past weeks, without providing details.
Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said the UN human rights office was no longer impartial and that its allegations were false, accusing it of ignoring what he described as Saudi bombardment in Yemen that had targeted public facilities including a correctional facility and homes and schools.
More than 70 UN staff are being detained by Houthis in Yemen, some of whom have been held for many years. Turk called for their release and urged all the warring parties to protect civilians, saying the government warnings of attacks did not remove the protections they should have.
Saudi officials have repeatedly said the country’s forces do not target civilians in Yemen. Saudi officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aid groups are ramping up their response to the crisis in a country where 18 million people, or roughly half the population face acute food insecurity.
The World Health Organization has stepped up distribution of medical supplies, including blood bags as well as trauma and surgery kits, and is deploying emergency teams as injuries rise, the statement said.
But many people lack support and a UN refugee agency plan for Yemen was less than 20% funded before the renewed violence caused a surge in needs.
An internally displaced mother of four, Aisha Ahmed, told Reuters in the Taiz camp that the influx of people in recent weeks is causing shortages. “We need water and everything else, we have nothing,” she said.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; additional reporting by Timour Azhari in Riyadh; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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