UN: 100 Yemen civilian casualties on average weekly in 2018

CAIRO – The United Nations refugee agency says nearly 100 civilians were killed or wounded in Yemen on average each week of 2018.

UNHCR says in a report that around 5,000 civilians were either killed or wounded last year, which averages out to 93 victims each week.

Nearly half of this number were wounded or killed in the country’s west, including the in the war-torn governorate of Hodeida. A third of the causalities were children, according to the Thursday report.

Volker Türk of the UNHCR says: “Exposed to daily violence, many live under constant fear and suffer in deteriorating conditions, turning in desperation to harmful coping mechanisms in order to survive.”

The war in Yemen started in 2014 and pits rebels who seized the capital against a Saudi-led coalition supporting the internationally recognized government.