On 23 April, a boy holds a large piece of exploded artillery shell, which landed in the area during a blast, in the village of Al Mahjar, a suburb of Sanaa, the capital. Another boy stands nearby.
By 12 May 2015 in Yemen, escalating conflict continued to exact a heavy toll on children and their families. Some 300,000 people have been internally displaced. Casualties have reached 1,527, including 115 children, and 6,266 people have been injured, including 172 children. Prior to the current crisis, 15.9 million people including 7.9 million children were already in need of humanitarian assistance. Despite the challenging operating conditions, UNICEF is scaling up its humanitarian response, including in the areas of nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), health, child protection and education. Support since the start of the current conflict has included providing access to clean water to 604,360 people and access to antenatal, delivery and postnatal care to 3,386 pregnant women; distributing hygiene kits to 16,662 families; and sharing educational messaging on health, hygiene and protection to 38,000 people. UNICEF has appealed for US$88.1 million to cover these and other responses through December 2015; 87 per cent remains unfunded to date.
