48,217 people killed or injured in Yemen war

Yemen’s Houthi rebels said 48,217 people had been killed or injured in the country's civil war that began in late 2014.

The Houthis' ministry of health and population said it documented 15,615 deaths, including 3,160 children and 3,216 women. A total of 32,602 were injured, including 4,592 children and 3,263.

The wording of the statement, released by the Houthi ministry on Wednesday, suggested that the Iran-backed rebels were reporting casualties only in areas under their control and caused as a direct result of military operations.

The numbers of child casualties reported is far lower than estimates by the UN, which says more than 11,000 children are known to have been killed or maimed in Yemen's civil war since it escalated about eight years ago.

Yemen's war broke out after Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa in late 2014, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015 at the request of the internationally recognised government.

Unicef estimated at least 3,774 child deaths between March 2015 and September 2022.

About 2.2 million Yemeni children are acutely malnourished, a quarter of them aged under five, and most are at extreme risk from cholera, measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases, Unicef said.