83 killed in ‘war on children’ across Mideast in past month, says UNICEF

The UN children’s agency (UNICEF) says at least 83 children were killed in Middle East war zones in January.

The UN children’s agency (UNICEF) says at least 83 children were killed in Middle East war zones in January.

Geert Cappelaere , UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, announced the figure in a statement in the Jordanian capital Amman on Monday.

“In the month of January alone, escalating violence in Iraq, Libya, the State of Palestine, Syria and Yemen has claimed the lives of at least 83 children,” the statement read.

“They were killed in ongoing conflicts, suicide attacks or frozen to death as they fled active war zones,” it added.

According to UNICEF, the highest death toll was in Syria where 59 children were killed in violence. Syria has been grappling with foreign-backed militancy since March 2011.

In Yemen, 16 children were killed in the past month amid the ongoing Saudi invasion of the impoverished country which enters its third year in March. 

According to a confidential document obtained by al-Jazeera news broadcaster, the Saudi-led military coalition also wounded 36 others in war-torn Yemen from July to September 2017.

Since March 2015, the Saudi regime, together with a coalition of its allies, has been heavily bombarding Yemen as part of a brutal campaign against its southern neighbor in an attempt to reinstall Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.