UN Coordinator: At Least 10,000 Killed in Yemen War

Toll Believed Much Higher Than Previously Acknowledged

Death tolls in the Saudi invasion of Yemen have been tough to come by, in no small part because much of the country has become a no-go area in the course of the reckless Saudi air campaign. Food shortages, medical shortages, destroyed hospitals, and hasty burials have conspired with mass internal displacement to make tracking casualties all but impossible.

But just a week after the UN human rights office reported 3,799 civilians killed over the course of the war, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Jamie McGoldrick, told a news conference he believes the overall toll is in excess of 10,000.

With many areas turned into war zones, there aren’t reliable records on casualties, and with millions displaced within the country and some 200,000 having fled abroad, it’s often impossible to tell who was killed and who simply fled elsewhere.

All these factors are likely to mean we never fully know the death toll of this war, but McGoldrick sees ample reason to believe it’s on the high end, and with more than half of the population reliant on food aid which isn’t always quick in being delivered, there is always a risk of the toll getting precipitously worse.

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Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.