About 400 children, including 273 children were killed by Houthi militias and forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, were killed due to armed clashes during 2016. According to the Yemeni coalition’s second annual report released recently in Geneva, 273 children were killed in indiscriminate attacks, direct shooting, and other attacks with weapons used by the putschists. The report pointed out that other cases were also recorded to be killed by other parties and extremist groups. Based on the report, six children were killed in Al Qaeda attacks. Three children were killed in drone attacks. Six children were killed due to attacks by the security authorities of the legitimate government. Five children were killed by unknown perpetrators or due to the lack of security. All the incidents that the Yemeni Coalition team documented are confirmed intentional attacks and did not have any potential military target, emphasized the report. In many of the incidents documented in the different governorates, especially in Taiz, the Yemeni coalition confirmed that children were mostly sitting, playing at home, helping their families fetch water from charitable public water tanks, or going to school. The report also shows that the Houthi and Saleh militias have committed most of violations and crimes against children in Yemen in attacks that were targeting civilians, noting that these militia have forgotten about the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians in armed conflict. The Yemeni coalition for monitoring human rights violations on Tuesday released its second annual report on the human rights situation in Yemen over the past year 2016 on the sidelines of the 34th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
