Note: Single-source report; awaiting corroboration.
UNICEF reports that over 57,000 children have been displaced in Yemen in the past two weeks due to increased violence. Some children have been killed, injured, or are missing amid clashes between Yemeni government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, and the Iran-backed Houthi militia. This escalation follows a period of relative calm after a UN-backed truce in 2022 and has forced tens of thousands of families to flee governorates including Taiz, Hudaydah, and Marib.
Since 3 September, at least nine children have been reported killed and 12 injured, with three children missing after an attack on a road linking Yemen’s western coast to Aden. The escalation has further disrupted children's access to healthcare and education. Services at 26 health facilities supported by UNICEF have been affected, and 243 schools have been closed or suspended, impacting more than 137,000 students.
In response, UNICEF is expanding its emergency operations to assist up to 231,000 people by supporting health facilities, distributing hygiene kits and water tanks in Taiz, and providing additional water and hygiene supplies in Marib. Nine mobile health and nutrition teams have been redeployed to displacement sites and affected areas including Aden, Marib, and Taiz. Emergency water and sanitation efforts aim to provide safe water and hygiene assistance to over 200,000 people while repairing damaged systems. Child protection teams are offering psychosocial care and case management, especially for unaccompanied and separated children, and educating communities about unexploded ordnance risks.
UNICEF is also working with Djibouti authorities to support Yemeni families who have fled across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, with more than 2,000 people—many of them children—arriving there. Even before the current escalation, approximately 12.2 million children in Yemen required humanitarian aid, including over 2.2 million children under five suffering from acute malnutrition, of whom more than 515,000 face severe acute malnutrition.