GENEVA — A yearlong conflict is threatening to cause a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries, the United Nations reported on Tuesday, saying that “children are paying the highest price.”
The effects of the conflict and the deteriorating humanitarian conditions have brought Yemen “to the point of collapse,” Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, said in a report, adding that the country was at risk of becoming a failed state.
At least six children have been killed or maimed in the fighting every day for the past year, Unicef said, calling that “the tip of the iceberg” because that number represented only the cases that had been verified. The toll is almost certainly much higher, the organization said.
For the past year, a Saudi-led coalition has sought to re-establish the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which was driven into exile by Houthi rebels and their allies.
Mr. Hadi was able to reach the southern port city of Aden in September, but the front lines have hardly shifted since, despite a costly campaign marked by intensive Saudi-led airstrikes.
The Unicef report was released as the Saudi-backed government and the Houthi rebels prepared for a halt to hostilities scheduled to come into effect at midnight on April 10, and for a round of peace talks, the second this year, scheduled to start in Kuwait eight days later.
As a confidence-building measure in the preparations for the cease-fire, Saudi Arabia announced on Monday that it had released 109Yemeni prisoners in return for nine Saudis.
Saudi military officials reported this month a drop in fighting along the border with Yemen, but Unicef’s representative in Yemen, Julien Harneis, said that fighting around the fiercely contested city of Taiz had intensified in recent days and that heavy airstrikes had continued in the north of the country.
The World Health Organization said last week that more than 6,200 people had been killed and over 30,000 others wounded in the past year. Unicef reported that at least 934 children had been killed in the conflict, 61 percent of them in airstrikes, and that an additional 1,356 had been wounded. Those numbers are “just the tip of the iceberg,” it said, adding that the toll was almost certainly much higher.
“Children are paying the highest price for a conflict not of their making,” Mr. Harneis said in a statement accompanying the report. “Children are not safe anywhere in Yemen.”
Unicef said it had verified 51 attacks on schools in the past year, and in comments by telephone from Sana, the capital, Mr. Harneis said the organization had also seen a “massive spike” in the recruitment of children, some as young as 10, by armed groups, particularly the Houthis.
In addition to airstrikes, civilians must contend with hazards posed by unexploded bombs and cluster munitions dropped by the Saudi coalition, and with land mines laid by Houthi forces as they pull back, Mr. Harneis said.
He added that the indirect consequences of the fighting were taking an even bigger toll, most notably on children, citing the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, health centers, and electricity and water supplies.
Before the conflict, about 40,000 children under 5 died from preventable diseases each year, Unicef said. But it has estimated that around 10,000 more had succumbed to disease in the past year because of a lack of access to clean water or health care.
“That’s the catastrophe for me,” Mr. Harneis said. “These children would never have died if it were not for this war.”
About 600 health centers have closed and 63 have come under attack, Unicef reported, adding that children’s vulnerability to disease had increased as a result of a sharp rise in the number suffering from acute malnutrition. In the worst cases, malnutrition kills, but in many others, it results in stunted physical and intellectual growth, Unicef said.
Despite the conflict, United Nations agencies have been able to deliver aid to most parts of the country, vaccinating more than four million children against polio and 1.8 million against measles, but they have been able to address only the most urgent needs.
The United Nations has reported that more than 80 percent of Yemen’s population of 24 million needs some form of humanitarian aid, with 19 million lacking access to clean water and 14 million in urgent need of health care.
Unicef has appealed for $180 million to finance its programs in Yemen in 2016, but so far it has received just 18 percent of that amount, Mr. Harneis said