New York-Sana
Four international organizations of the United Nations have warned that 2.3 million Yemeni children under the age of five are at risk of severe malnutrition this year due to the blockade and what is now accompanying the spread of the Corona pandemic, among whom 400 thousand children face the risk of death in the absence of urgent international intervention.
The organizations, the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the World Food Program said in a joint statement today: “There was a sharp rise in the rate of malnutrition by 16 percent last year, including 22 percent of children under the age of five, while this problem threatens about half of children under the age of five. In Yemen".
The statement pointed out that malnutrition harms the physical and cognitive development of the child, especially during the first two years of his life and leads to the continuation of the disease, noting that it is also expected that about 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women in Yemen will suffer from acute malnutrition this year.
"More Yemeni children will die with each passing day without international action," UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said. "Humanitarian organizations need urgent resources and unimpeded access to communities to be able to save lives."
In turn, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Qu Dunywa, said that "without security and stability in Yemen and access to farmers to provide them with the necessary means to resume cultivating enough quality food, Yemeni children and their families will continue to slide further into hunger and malnutrition."
For his part, Executive Director of the World Food Program, David Beasley, pointed out that “the numbers are another cry for assistance to Yemen, as every child suffers from malnutrition also means that the family fights for survival,” stressing the need to find a solution to famine and an end to the war to end the suffering of Yemen’s children. .
The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also warned that diseases and a poor health environment are among the main factors for malnutrition of children and make them more vulnerable to diseases such as diarrhea, respiratory infections and malaria, but with cheap and relatively simple interventions, many lives can be saved.
The report warned that Yemen is one of the most dangerous places in the world for children to live in, as there are high rates of infectious diseases, limited access to routine vaccinations and health services for children and families, in addition to insufficient sanitation and hygiene systems, and at the same time the health care system is weak due to the Corona virus. Which has depleted scarce resources resulting in fewer people seeking medical care.
It is noteworthy that the Saudi aggression on Yemen, which has continued since March 2015, has caused a deterioration in the economic, living and health conditions in the country as a result of the blockade imposed by the forces of aggression on Yemeni ports and the failure to allow the entry of relief and medical aid, which has led to the largest humanitarian disaster in the world according to several UN organizations.