UN monitors in Yemen recorded 13 civilian casualties caused by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) last month in Yemen’s western province of Hodeidah.
The UN Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement reported that six civilians were killed and seven others injured in April in explosions caused by landmines and other unexploded ordnance in various locations of the Red Sea Yemen province, bringing the total number of civilian deaths and injuries to 363 since January last year.
Last month’s civilian casualty figure is 13 percent lower than the same month last year and 24 percent lower than in March 2023.
“During the month of Ramadan (22 March to 21 April 2023), 22 casualties were recorded as a result of 10 incidents, in comparison to 15 casualties caused by nine incidents in the last Ramadan (2 April to 1 May 2022),” the UN mission said in a statement.
Even as the UN-brokered Stockholm Agreement, signed by Yemeni parties in late 2018, has brought relative calm to the province of Hodeidah over the last five years, thousands of landmines laid by the Iran-backed Houthis have continued to kill and maim hundreds of civilians while also preventing many internally displaced people from returning to their homes as well as farms, schools and workplaces.
The announcement of the UN mission comes as the Saudi-funded Masam demining program in Yemen prepares to record the removal of 400,000 landmines and other unexploded war remnants from the country.—Agencies
