Death toll from Yemen’s war hits 100,000 since 2015: report

In this Friday Aug. 9, 2019 frame grab from video, Southern Transitional Council separatist fighters head toward the presidential palace in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen. The separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates began withdrawing Sunday from positions they seized from the internationally-recognized government in Aden. Both the southern separatists and the government forces are ostensibly allies in the Saudi-led military coalition that’s been battling the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen since 2015, but the four days of fighting in Aden have exposed a major rift in the alliance. (AP Photo)

CAIRO (AP) — A database project that tracks violence says Yemen’s civil war has killed more than 100,000 people since 2015.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, said Thursday the war’s death toll includes more than 12,000 civilians killed in attacks directly targeting civilians.

The conflict in the Arab world’s poorest nation began with the 2014 takeover of northern and central Yemen by Iran-aligned rebels, driving out the internationally recognized government from the capital, Sanaa. Months later, in March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition launched its air campaign to prevent the rebels, known as Houthis, from overrunning the country’s south.

Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties and killed thousands of Yemeni civilians. The Houthi rebels have used drones and missiles to attack Saudi Arabia and have targeted vessels in the Red Sea.