Alwaght-Saudi Arabia's 10 week brutal aggression against neighboring Yemen has led to the killing of least 279 Yemeni children and 402 others injured, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) says.
In a Tuesday statement UNICEF representative in Yemen Julien Harneis said the figure is four times higher than the number of children who were killed last year.
According to Harneis, the number of children who were recruited last year by armed groups was 156, while it has already doubled to 318 in the current year.
The statement further emphasized that Yemeni children will suffer from long-lasting ramifications of the ongoing conflict in their homeland.
“The violence in Yemen has not only devastated the lives of millions of children, but is creating terrifying, long-term consequences for their future."
UNICEF is backing a call by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for a pause in the fighting during the holy month of Ramadan, which begun Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia launched its air aggression against Yemen on March 26 - without a UN mandate - in a bid to undermine the Ansarullah movement and to restore power to the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.
The UN says at least 2,600 people have lost their lives and 11,000 others have been wounded due to the conflict in Yemen since March 19.