UN rights chief says civilians bearing brunt of escalating Yemen war
Volker Türk says the UN has documented 32 civilians killed, including 15 children, since August as fighting between government forces and the Houthis escalates, displacing more than 130,000 people.
Civilians are bearing the brunt of surging violence in Yemen between Saudi-backed government forces and the Iran-backed Houthis, the UN human rights chief said on Thursday.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said his office had documented the killing of 32 civilians, including 15 children and three women, since August in fighting that included drone and missile strikes. A total of 125 people were documented as killed or wounded in the latest flare-up.
The fighting marks a sharp escalation in a civil war that had been largely frozen since a 2022 truce. Violence has flared along old front lines in recent weeks, including around Taiz, as the Houthis swept south along the Red Sea coast. More than 130,000 people have been displaced, some fleeing across the Red Sea to Africa, and the UN forecasts the number could exceed 230,000 in the coming months.
Türk’s office said it had documented three Houthi attacks on sites hosting internally displaced people in Marib province, and called on all sides to allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians in need.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam rejected the findings, saying the UN office was no longer impartial and had ignored what he called Saudi bombardment targeting public facilities. He said the allegations were “false and unsupported by evidence”.
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