Contrary to the humanitarian care being provided by the Arab Coalition Forces for children recruited under "Al-Houthis' Banner", who are captured at Saudi border and safely return them to their families, Al-Houthi coup militias and ousted Saleh forces have killed a large number of children in several Yemeni governorates over the past two years. According to an official report made by Yemeni Coalition Monitoring and Documentation's Teams to monitor human rights violations, most of the children killed by Al-Houthi sniper fire were sitting or playing in their homes or during helping their families to transfer water from charitable water tanks allocated for water distribution in addition to killing some of them while leaving their schools. According to the Yemeni Alliance report, Al-Houthi militias and the ousted forces of Saleh have overstated the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians in the armed conflict as the international humanitarian law requires parties to armed conflict to distinguish between combatants and civilians during attacks and that the international law considers that deliberately directing attacks against civilians constitutes a crime Punishable by law. Moreover, the report documented the murdering of 393 children, including 273 killed by indiscriminate attacks and direct sniper fire committed by members of Al-Houthis' militia and pro-forces, while six children killed in attacks by Al-Qaeda in Yemen and Taiz, one of the worst affected areas of Yemen pertaining to the murdering of children as victims of Al-Houthis' bullets. The report stressed that the monitoring teams have ascertained that all the incidents of murdering children proved that they had been killed deliberately by Al-Houthi coup militias and the ousted forces of Saleh and that those incidents had no potential military objectives but with the intention of just killing innocent people. The Monitoring Group has also recorded Al-Houthis' abuse violations against childhood all of which fall under the category of child abuse defined by the UN Security Council, known as the six serious violations, including: killing or mutilating children, recruitment and use of children as soldiers, sexual violence against children, attacks on schools and hospitals, denial of humanitarian assistance to children and the abduction of children. The report pointed out that one of the most prominent effects of violations against childhood in Yemen is murder, injury, deformity and disability, both temporary and permanent, and the negative impact on growth and psychological stability as well as forcing children to bear early responsibility that may affect their educational and psychological status. The report also pointed out that forced displacement is among the violations committed against children in Yemen, noting that its negative effects on the psychology and living conditions of children, widespread child labor that may make them victims of future violence and the phenomenon of child trafficking and lack of adequate protection in addition to family disintegration and several other reasons concerning living difficulties.
