Attachments
Executive Summary
Key Trends
Armed violence continues to generate a high civilian impact in Yemen
In 2018, 2,361 incidents of armed violence with a direct civilian impact were recorded country-wide, and average of 45 per week. These incidents generated 4,836 civilian casualties, including 952 children and 581 women, 32% of the total.
A fith of all civilian casualties were children
20% of all the civilian casualties recorded countrywide in 2018 were children: 410 children were killed and 542 were injured by armed violence in the past year. In the deadliest incident, 96 children were among the 130 civilian casualties caused by an airstrike that hit a bus carrying schoolchildren in Sa’ada in August.
The year was marked by mass civilian casualty incidents
The school bus bombing was just one of 95 incidents in which more than 10 civilian casualties were recorded. These mass civilian casualty incidents accounted for 2,141 civilian casualties, 44% of the yearly total. The majority of these incidents, 61%, were caused by airstrikes, with another 19% the result of shelling.
Just under half (43%) were recorded in Al-Hudaydah and almost a quarter (22%) in Sa’ada, with 11% occurring in Taiz.
Vulnerable groups remain widely impacted by armed violence
In total, 1,253 incidents (53%) were recorded impacting women and children, with another 177 impacting only children and 77 impacting women alone. In addition, 29 incidents impacted on existing IDPs, including women and children, and 2 on refugees. In total, 69% of the recorded incidents impacted on vulnerable groups.
The dynamic frontlines in Al-Hudaydah resulted in the most civilian casualties
Overall, Al-Hudaydah and Sa'ada hubs saw the most civilian impact incidents, with Sa’ada accounting for 44% of the total and Al-Hudaydah 34%. Resultantly, they also saw the most civilian casualties. But, although the AlHudaydah hub was the location for roughly one-third of incidents, almost half (48%) of all civilian casualties in the year were recorded there. 22% of the casualties were recorded in Sa’ada.
Airstrikes caused the most civilian impact
Airstrikes caused the most incidents with a civilian impact in 2018, 1,113 incidents countrywide, 47% of the total. This was followed by shelling with 897 incidents, 38%. Together these two types of armed violence were responsible for 85% of the civilian impact incidents in the past year. In line with this, airstrikes and shelling caused the most civilian casualties in the year, 79% of the total. Airstrikes were responsible for 2,504 civilian casualties (52%), almost twice as many as the second highest, shelling, with 1,300 (27%). Airstrikes were also responsible for more than three quarters of incidents impacting on infrastructure (76%), generating signicant damage to civilian infrastructure.
Landmines were the deadliest type of armed violence
A deadlier type of incident than either of these was landmines, which caused the third most civilian casualties in the year, despite the lower rate of incidents. 233 civilian casualties were reportedly the result of landmines countrywide from 74 incidents, an average of 3 casualties per incident. 60% of these civilian casualties were in Al-Hudaydah, where the most intensive ghting was seen this year.