January 2022 'most violent month' for Saudi strikes on Yemen, war monitor says

January 2022 was the most deadly month for Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Yemen in more than five years, a war monitor said Wednesday.

The Yemen Data Project said 139 civilians were killed and 287 injured in airstrikes in January. This took the total civilian casualty toll from coalition airstrikes since 2015 to more than 19,000, the monitor said.

The monitor's findings follow an airstrike on a prison in Saada, northern Yemen last month that killed more than 70 people.

Intense fighting is causing civilian casualties across the country.

Last month, the UN Children's Fund Middle East chief Ted Chaiban announced that 17 children were killed in Yemen in the first three weeks of 2022, a number almost twice as high as for the whole of December.

"Children in Yemen continue to be the first and most to pay, almost seven years on in one of the most brutal armed conflicts in recent history", he said.

"UNICEF calls on parties to the conflict in Yemen and those with influence over them to respect international law and protect civilians, including children, at all times."

The war in Yemen started in 2014, the year the Houthi rebels took the capital Sanaa and vast swathes of other land.

The Houthis are backed by Iran, while the Yemeni government is supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Human rights organisations have accused the coalition, rebels and others involved in the fighting of committing serious abuses.

The UN has called Yemen's war the world's worst humanitarian crisis.