ADEN, Yemen, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Three children sustained serious injuries on Thursday when an explosive device of war exploded in Yemen's southern province of Dhalea, a military official told Xinhua.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the blast occurred in a residential area in the Qatabah district of Dhalea and left the three children suffering severe shrapnel wounds.
He said emergency responders promptly transported them to a nearby medical facility for urgent medical care.
The incident underscores the persistent danger unexploded ordnance poses to civilians in Yemen after years of military conflict. Large swaths of territory remain littered with mines, shells, grenades, and other hazardous military detritus, according to the official.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement said in a statement that it recorded five separate landmine incidents in the country's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah last month. Those blasts resulted in nine civilian casualties, four of them children.
Yemen's protracted civil war erupted in 2014 when the Houthi group seized control over much of the country's north, compelling the Saudi-backed internationally recognized government to flee. A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in 2015 in an attempt to restore the government.
The long-running conflict has birthed one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. But even as the warring sides have observed a lull in fighting in recent months, the dire threat of landmines and unexploded ordnance continues to haunt Yemeni people across large territories. ■
