Four children were killed Thursday in the Iran-backed Houthi controlled western Yemeni city of Hodeidah after one of them stepped on a landmine, a medical source and a father said.

The source said a group of seven children were walking through an empty lot near the airport of the Red Sea city, an area where mines pose a constant threat to civilians, when tragedy struck on Thursday.

Three of them were killed on the spot while the fourth child died in hospital, he said, adding the victims were aged between 10 and 15.

“The children went out in the morning while we were asleep... The surviving children came and told us about the accident,” father Yahya Abdullah told AFP.
“I went and found one of my two sons injured but alive, but his brother had died,” he said.

“I covered his stomach, he had been hit by shrapnel, and carried him to the hospital, but he died in the operating room.”

Liz Throssell, spokesperson of the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, said last month that “children are especially at risk” from landmines or improvised explosive devices or unexploded ordnance, although a ceasefire that took effect in April in Yemen’s conflict since 2015 between the warring parities have greatly held.