1,850 killed in Yemen since March, says UN

Geneva: The United Nations said on Tuesday that some 1,850 people had been killed and more than 5,00,000 displaced as a result of the conflict raging in Yemen since late March. As of May 15, 1,849 people had been killed and 7,394 had been injured, the UN humanitarian agency said citing numbers from Yemen health facilities. The announcement came as witnesses reported that Saudi-led warplanes hit Yemeni rebels and their allies in Sanaa, in the first strikes on the rebel-held capital since the end of a five-day humanitarian truce.

 

The Saudi-led coalition has waged an air war on the rebels since late March in an effort to restore the authority of exiled president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who is now based in Riyadh. “The humanitarian pause in Yemen was not long enough to reach all those in need of food,” Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN World Food Programme, said.

 

She said WFP had managed to deliver food to only 4,00,000 people during the pause, just over half of the 7,38,000 it had aimed to help. “WFP is appealing for a series of predictable breaks in the conflict to deliver desperately needed aid,” she said. UN refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards meanwhile said the humanitarian pause had allowed all six of the planned UNHCR aid-loaded flights to land safely in Sanaa.