Yemen’s infants facing starvation as war rages

SANAA: Ahmed Hassan is only a few months old, but his emaciated frame twitches as he cries in pain when Yemeni doctors gently place him on a scale. He is starving.

In the next room, nurses make baby formula by the pitcher, filling syringes to ration a portion for each malnourished child who comes to Sabaeen Hospital in the capital for emergency treatment.

Too weak to swallow, some babies are fed through feeding tubes that go through the nose directly into the stomach.

After being fed, some of them appear to feel a bit better, crawling over to play with other emaciated children in the clinic, tubes still taped to their faces.

“Life’s become really very difficult... but we do our best, given the circumstances,” said Umm Tarek, as her nine-monthold baby underwent treated for malnutrition.

“We’re not from here, so we rent an old, old house for 10,000 riyals ($40) in Hiziaz,” south of Sanaa, she said.

“Then my baby got sick because we used to give him formula, but now we can’t afford both the house and powdered milk anymore.”

Four years of war between Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and Ansar Allah have pushed the country to the brink of mass starvation. The United Nations last week warned 14 million Yemenis are at serious risk of famine, as the war shows no sign of waning. Mark Lowcock, the UN’S humanitarian chief, said last Monday the danger of famine in Yemen is “much bigger than anything any professional in this field has seen during their working lives.’’

At Sabaeen Hospital, paediatrician Sharaf Nashwan said some families can’t afford transport costs to reach the facility.

“So their children are left for days or weeks suffering malnutrition, until someone helps them out with a little money to get their kids to hospital. But by then we’re looking at a really severe case,” he said.

Nearly 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen and more than 56,000 injured since 2015, according to the World Health Organization. The UN this month called for a humanitarian ceasefire around facilities involved in food aid distribution, but neither the Ansar Allah nor Saudi and its allies have heeded the call.

The two sides are fighting for control of the country.

The Ansar Allah now controls Sanaa along with much of Yemen’s northern highlands and western Hodeida, Yemen’s largest port through which nearly threequarters of imports flow.