Nearly 2,000 children recruited by Houthis killed in Yemen conflict: UN

The United Nations revealed that nearly 2,000 children recruited by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have died since the conflict began in 2014.

UN experts said they had evidence that Houthi rebels used summer camps and a mosque to propagate their ideology and recruit minors to partake in the war, in an annual report to the Security Council circulated on Saturday.

"The children are instructed to shout the Houthi slogan 'death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam'," the four-member panel of experts said.

"In one camp, children as young as 7 years of age were taught to clean weapons and evade rockets," it added.

The panel said it received a list of 1,406 children recruited by the Houthis who died in battle in 2020, and 562 child soldiers killed between January and May last year, adding that they were aged between 10 and 17.

It said a significant number of them were killed in Amran, Dhamar, Hajjah, Hodeidah, Ibb, Saada and the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa.

The panel condemned the use of child soldiers, and called on all parties "to refrain from using schools, summer camps and mosques to recruit children".

Saudi-led coalition forces launched their intervention against the Houthis in March 2015, the start of a conflict that has directly cost more than 150,000 lives and displaced millions of people.