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There is no new official data about the landmines’ victims in Yemen, and it is hard to get a correct number of them, because the Houthi militias continue to plant these deadly traps extensively.
Human Rights reports confirm that the number of the Houthi landmines’ victims exceeds 10 thousands, mostly women and children, and Taiz province is the most afflicted province by the number of landmines and victims, Al Hudaydah province comes in second place then Al Jawf province.
In Al Wazi’iya and Muazza’a directorates alone, the Supervisor of Masam’s clearing teams in Taiz, Engineer Aref Alqahtani confirmed in a statement to Masam’s media office that 1755 people fell victims to the landmines, including: 165 children, 117 women and 212 men, as for the people who became handicapped, the numbers were: 291 children, 194 women and 776 men.
And if we follow the same pattern in 15 Yemeni provinces where the Houthis planted landmines, the number of victims may reach 10 thousands.
According to local organizations and reports, Al Jawf province is one of the most afflicted Yemeni provinces by the landmines that the Houthi militias planted at random in farms, roads, civilians’ houses and populated villages during the last six years.
And according to reports published by the Human Rights Bureau in Al Jawf province, the Houthi landmines and explosive devices killed and wounded 575 civilians, mostly women and children, since 2016 until the end of 2019. The number includes 190 dead and 385 wounded.
And since the beginning of this year, the report asserts that the Houthi landmines and explosive devices killed 10 people, including 4 children, and wounded 40 people, including 29 men, 8 women and 3 children.
For its part, The Dutch Rights Radar organization published also a report about the landmines’ victims in Yemen, under the title: “Yemen.. The gardens of death”.
According to the report, the Houthi landmines killed 580 people, including 104 children and 60 women, as for the wounded their number reached 457, including 288 men, 113 children and 56 women.
And a recent report published by the Civilian Imapct Monitoring Project in Yemen indicated that the number of the Houthi militias’ victims reached 68 people, 37 of them were killed, since the beginning of 2020.
The Civilian Imapct Monitoring Project, which is a source for humanitarian data, confirmed that the Houthi landmines planted in agricultural lands, villages, water wells and roads killed 140 civilians, including 19 children in Al Hudaydah and Taiz provinces since 2018.
And thus, Yemen became the most afflicted country by the calamity of landmines in the Middle East region, and it has the biggest number of landmine explosions in the world, which poses a continuous threat to civlians’ lives.