The ongoing conflict in the Republic of Yemen prevented the operation of a national casualty surveillance mechanism. The 160 casualties identified by the Monitor for 2017 is certainly an underreporting of the annual total.

In 2017, the Monitor identified casualties in the following governorates: Abyan, Ad Dali, Aden, Al Bayda, Al Jawf, Hadramawt, Hajjan, Hodeida, Marib, Saada, Sanaa, Shabwah, and Taiz.

Various Yemeni authorities and human rights organizations reported annual totals and cumulative totals for all time. However, their reports rarely describe the source or methodology used to compile these figures, and in some cases, do not specify the time period. The figures provided are widely different, indicating the challenge of collecting reliable data in a context of ongoing conflict.

Okaz website reports that in 2017, mines laid by the Houthi killed 147 people, including 18 children and 11 women, and injured 244, including 33 children and 20 women. The majority of accidents took place in Taiz governorate, where 77 were killed and 178 injured. However, it does not provide any source for this information.[2] A media report provides slightly different figures for casualties in Taiz in 2017, where 193 people were killed and injured. Of those killed, 20 were military and 58 were civilian, of whom three were children and six were women.[3] Mwatana’s 2017 annual report for human rights gives a much lower figure of 14 civilians killed (including three women and two children), and 46 injured (including 19 women and 14 injured) as a result of 25 accidents in 2017.[4] Another media source states that in several governorates in the period between 1 January and 31 May 2017, 39 civilians were killed, including five children and three women, while 69 were injured, including 14 children.[5]

According to one media source from 15 April 2017, people were more aware of the dangers than they were in previous years.[6]

Through to the end of 2017, the Monitor identified at least 9,118 mine/ERW casualties in Yemen.[7] The 2017 total of 160 is much less than the 2016 total of 2,037. In 2016, the vast majority of casualties were reported by the ICRC—2,037 people injured by mines/ERW were admitted into 46 ICRC-supported hospitals.[8] However, in 2017, no data was available from the ICRC. The 2016 figure is more than double the 988 reported for 2015. In 2014, the Monitor identified 24 casualties. However, there was likely significant underreporting due to the challenges facing data collection caused by the intensified armed conflict.[9]

Other sources have provided cumulative figures for mine/ERW casualties since the current conflict began. As mentioned above, these vary widely. According to a media report in May 2017, Yemen’s Minister of Human Rights was quoted by a Saudi news agency as saying that landmines may have killed up to 440 people and injured more than 540 others.[10] However, another undated website states that the ministry reported that mines had caused permanent injury to 814 citizens.[11]

A reported entitled “Antipersonnel mine victims in Yemen: during the period from September 2014 to June 2018,” by the Yemeni Coalition for Monitoring Human Rights Violations, reports a total of 1,940 casualties, of which 906 were killed and 1,034 injured. However, it does not explain how this data was collected, nor does it give a breakdown by year. Accidents were reported in 19 governorates. Of the total, 1,508 were men, 116 women, and 316 children. Civilians made up 1,374 of the casualties, and 566 were military. Antipersonnel mines caused 1,196 casualties, antivehicle mines 672, and IEDs 72—no information was available as to whether these were improvised mines.[12]

The majority of casualties have occurred in Taiz governorate. A media source quoted Basam Al Ariqi from the Yemen Executive Mine Action Center (YEMAC) reporting that in Taiz province alone, landmines had killed 268 and injured 214 between April 2015 and March 2017. He also noted that “the conflict zones in Taiz are in residential areas, so the casualties are usually civilians.”[13] Another media source quoted the director of the center for artificial limbs in Taiz, reporting that approximately 315 people were injured in the city from the beginning of the war until mid-June 2017, of which 70% were caused by landmines.[14]

Prior to 2015, the casualty total for 2012 of 263 casualties was the highest annual number recorded by the Monitor for Yemen since research began in 1999, and was due to the conflict and increased population movement in that year.[15] A Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) identified 4,904 casualties through July 2000, of which 2,560 people were killed and 2,344 were injured.[16] In 2010, it was reported in the media that there had been 35,000 mine/ERW casualties in Yemen since 1995.[17]

Cluster munition casualties

In 2017, 54 casualties of cluster munitions were reported in Yemen, 26 were casualties of cluster munition attacks and unexploded submunitions caused 28 casualties.[18]

The 54 cluster munition casualties reported in 2017 represented an increase in the 38 reported in 2016, but was lower than the 104 reported in 2015.

Prior to new use of cluster munitions in 2015, a cluster munition attack in Yemen in December 2009 was reported to have killed 55 people, including 14 women and 21 children.[19] In 2013, it was reported that unexploded submunitions remaining from the 2009 attack had killed four civilians and injured 13 in two incidents, one inDecember 2009, a few days after the attack, and the other in January 2012.[20]