UN: 2,000 children recruited by Yemen’s rebels died fighting

By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. experts say in a new report that nearly 2,000 children recruited by Yemen’s Houthi rebels died on the battlefield between January 2020 and May 2021 and the Iranian-backed rebels continue to hold camps and courses encouraging youngsters to fight. In the report circulated Saturday, the experts said they investigated some summer camps in schools and a mosque where the Houthis disseminated their ideology and sought to recruit children to fight in Yemen’s seven-year war. The experts said: “The children are instructed to shout the Houthi slogan `death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.’”