"A rewarding for the killers": UNDP provides Houthis with equipment and funding to combat landmines planted by them

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Yemen has provided the Houthis with equipment and funding to combat the landmines planted by the militia, activists consider it "a rewarding for killers".

Social media activists circulating photos of the Houthi militia receiving mine-clearing equipment funded by the UNDP, expressing their mockery of the situation and describing it as the UN program "rewarding the killer".

"The UN program provides mine-clearing equipment to those who plant the landmines, rather than to the government or the affected parties who suffer from these mines planted by the Houthis every day". They said.

Yemeni activists said that the UN program has delivered millions of dollars for mine-clearing to the Houthis since 2017, stating that the program is also responsible for transferring oil from the Safer ship, as it handed over an alternative ship to the Houthis along with the Humanitarian Coordinator.

In turn, the Yemeni Mine Action Centre revealed statistics on the number of mine victims in 9 Yemeni provinces, stating that from the beginning of the year until mid-February, 42 civilians were killed and 61 injured. The latest victims were three children who were killed in the district of Hays, south of Hodeidah province, when a Houthi landmine exploded in a football field.

The centre believed that the incident reveals the extent to which the Houthis have used landmines as a deadly weapon, not for military purposes, but to target and disrupt life. It explained that the lives of rural women in Yemen are at risk from the landmines planted by the Houthis and the explosive remnants of war.

The report documented the killing of 3 women and the injury of 6 in the past two months in the provinces of Hodeidah, Marib, Al-Jawf, Saada, Al-Baydha, and Lahj.

In the same context, the Saudi "Masam" project to clear Yemeni lands from landmines reported an increase in the number of landmines cleared by the project since its inception to 390,586 mines randomly planted by the Houthis to claim more innocent victims, including children, women, and the elderly.