International Organization: Mine Victims in Yemen Rise to 40 Children This Year
Yemen Monitor/Newsroom:
Save the Children stated that the killing of five children in Taiz, southwestern Yemen, while playing football due to an unexploded ordnance explosion, has raised the number of child victims of unexploded ordnance and landmines this year to at least 40 children.
The organization added that Yemen remains one of the most contaminated countries in the world with landmines and unexploded ordnance, where children are paying a heavy price. It noted that these remnants of war have caused the death and injury of 107 civilians in the first half of 2025 alone.
It indicated that the total death toll last year reached 260, with more than a third of them being children, according to the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project.
The organization affirmed that decades of recurring armed conflict since the early 1960s have left a deadly legacy of explosive ordnance in Yemen, posing a continuous threat to children’s safety.
It pointed out that funding cuts have forced life-saving mine action activities to cease, including protection monitoring, mine clearance, risk awareness, and victim assistance in almost all crisis-affected areas.
Mohammed Mannaa, Save the Children’s Country Director in Yemen, explained that this tragic incident is a reminder that no place is truly safe for Yemeni children as long as the deadly remnants of war are scattered in their neighborhoods.
Mannaa stated that donors are urged to urgently re-fund and increase funding for mine action programs and risk awareness initiatives, emphasizing the necessity for all parties to the conflict to cease using landmines and other explosive weapons and to respect international humanitarian law.
Save the Children confirmed that it has been working in Yemen since 1963, placing child protection at the core of its programs, including providing specialized care and assistance to children injured by landmines and explosive remnants of war.
