Yemen children starve as war nears
HAYS, Yemen, Oct 19, (Agencies): An emaciated little girl lies motionless on a hospital bed and struggles to breathe. Her body is covered with sores. She can barely open her eyes.
Hafsa Ahmed is about 2. About a dozen other children in the red-brick hospital in this southern Yemeni city are also dying of starvation.
Hunger has long threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yemen’s children. Now, the war between the country’s Iranbacked Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition is threatening to escalate after months of a tenuous truce. Yemenis, and international assistance groups, worry that the situation will get even worse.
In the city of Hodeida, with a population of roughly 3 million, al-Thawra Hospital receives 2,500 patients daily, including “super-malnourished” children, said Joyce Msuya, U.N. assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs. She visited the facility this month.
Around 2.2 million Yemeni children under the age of 5 are hungry. More than half a million are severely malnourished. Some 1.3 million pregnant or breastfeeding women had severe malnutrition this year, the United Nations says.
“This is one of the saddest visits I’ve ever done in my professional life,” Msuya said in a video released by the U.N. “There are immense needs. Half of Yemeni hospitals are not functioning, or they are completely destroyed by the war. We need more support to save lives in Yemen, children, women and men.” The war in Ukraine is exacerbating the situation.
The Yemeni diet depends heavily on wheat. Ukraine supplied Yemen with 40% of its grain, until Russia’s invasion cut the flow. In developed countries, people are working harder to pay higher bills. In Yemen, food is 60% more expensive than it was last year. And in poor countries, inflation can mean death.
“Yemen has been hit three times by the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” said Peter Salisbury, a Yemen expert at the International Crisis Group. “First, by the loss of food supplies from Ukraine and higher prices on international markets. Then, by higher fuel prices. And third, by a shift in international focus.”
War has raged for eight years in Yemen between Shiite Houthi rebels and pro-government forces backed by a coalition of Sunni Gulf Arab states. The Iran-backed Houthis swept down from the mountains in 2014, occupied northern Yemen and the country’s capital, Sanaa, and forced the internationally recognized government to flee into exile to Saudi Arabia.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called for scaling up response on child malnutrition in both development and humanitarian agendas for all children and women in Lebanon.
A technical roundtable, co-organized by the Fund and the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health on Wednesday, focused on child and woman wellbeing especially in times of crisis.
Participants, including government and non-government stakeholders, provided recommendation to activate Lebanon’s National Nutrition Strategy and ensure collective accountability from the five key delivery systems of healthcare, food, education and social protection, according to the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA).
Minister of Public Health Dr. Firas Al-Abiad said,”In Lebanon we have a nutrition strategy on how to address the multiple burden of malnutrition for the next five years; it’s time to roll it out.”
“Malnutrition needs to be addressed because its consequences is burdening the communities and the national economy.
“While ownership is the key, we welcome international partners, donors, academia, nutrition sector, NGOs all relevant partners to support us rolling out the strategy to prevent all forms of malnutrition,” the minister noted.
On his part, UN Resident Coordinator in Lebanon Edouard Beigbeder said, “Early nutrition, starting from pre-conception, is critical for children’s growth, development, education and a productive future generation.”
“Ensuring healthy diets and ending malnutrition has become a greater challenge for the most vulnerable groups during these challenging times in Lebanon and therefore must be a critical part of our humanitarian response and our development work under the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework,” NNA quoted him as saying.