Sana’a, Oct 22. (dpa/GNA) – At least 1,500 people have been killed and more than 6,900 injured in the most recent violence in Yemen that flared up again in August, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Thursday.
The casualty totals since the renewed escalation a few months ago are likely to be considerably higher, since the UN agency does not receive casualty figures from areas controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
The non-profit organization, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), which analyses data from conflict zones, has counted more than 6,400 people killed since the renewed escalation in the same period, including fighters and civilians.
According to ACLED, these victims included people in the provinces of Taiz, Marib and Lahij, which have been fought over for weeks.
In the devastating civil war in Yemen, which has been ongoing for more than 10 years, it is hardly possible to collect reliable casualty figures.
Many hospitals and other health facilities do not count the victims, and authorities are not working or are only working to a very limited extent.
Victims in remote areas or mountain regions are often not recorded at all. The Houthi rebels sometimes give casualty figures from their areas, but these cannot be independently verified.
The United Nations estimated in 2021 that 377,000 people died in the civil war. A large proportion of victims in Yemen die from the indirect consequences of the war, such as acute malnutrition, shortages of medicines and the collapse of health care overall, especially among children.
ACLED estimated that more than 160,000 people have been killed by direct consequences of the war, such as ground fighting and airstrikes, since 2015, when Saudi Arabia entered the conflict.
The war in Yemen began in 2014, when the Houthi rebels overran the capital Sana’a and large parts of the north. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its allies began bombing Houthi targets. The Houthis now control large areas in the north and west, where an estimated 70% of Yemen’s population lives.
The conflict has gradually re-escalated since the middle of the year, in the course of the Iran war.
In September, the Houthis captured additional parts of the western coast in a lightning offensive. Since then, they have again been attacking Saudi Arabia almost daily with drones and missiles.
Attempts to resolve the conflict, including by the UN and the mediator Oman, have failed or brought only partial progress.
GNA