The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
85,000 children dead of hunger and illness
A leading international aid group said Wednesday that an estimated 85,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 may have died of hunger and disease since the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 2015.
Save the Children based its figures on mortality rates for untreated cases of severe acute malnutrition, or SAM, in young children. The United Nations says more than 1.3 million children have suffered from SAM since a Saudi-led coalition went to war with Yemen’s Houthi rebels in March 2015.
The aid group said its “con- servative estimate” was that 84,701 children may have died, based on historical studies that find that 20 to 30 percent of untreated cases lead to death. Save the Chil- dren says it calculated the figure based on the number of cases reported in areas where aid groups were unable to intervene.
“For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death and it’s entirely preventable,” said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children’s Yemen director. “Chil- dren who die in this way suffer immensely as their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop.”
The war has given rise to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Three-quarters of Yemen’s people require life-saving assistance and more than 8 million are at risk of starvation. Tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed in the fighting.
Save the Children blamed the widespread starvation on a Saudi-led blockade that was tightened a year ago after the Iran-aligned rebels fired a ballistic missile at the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
The charity also cited recent fighting in and around the port city of Hodeida, a lifeline through which Yemen imports some 70 percent of its food and humanitarian aid.
It said commercial imports through the rebel-held port have fallen by more than 55,000 metric tons a month — enough to meet the needs of 4.4 million people. Save the Children said it had been forced to bring supplies for the northern Yemen through the southern port of Aden, slowing aid deliveries.
The overwhelming poverty in Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, has compounded the situation.
Children “have no access to food although it’s available on the market .... families cannot provide for their chil- dren and cannot afford it,” said Sukaina Sharafuddin, a Save the Children employee in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.
In the United States, Pres- ident Donald Trump has put Saudi investments and arms purchases first, even as members of his administration have pressured the Saudis to stop the Yemeni conflict. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo both vowed in October that the war should come to an end. The United States exports more arms to Saudi Arabia than any other country.
“It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction,” Pompeo said.
Earlier this month, the administration added more pressure by ending its practice of refueling Saudi-coalition aircraft involved in the conflict. Critics said the Saudi military used those planes to drop bombs on nonmilitary targets, killing thousands of civilians.
The Saudi-led coalition appears to be aware of the mounting international resistance, too, and has handed its supporters some arguments in its favor. This week, Saudi Arabia and the UAE pledged $500 million in aid to Yemen.
But the bombardment has continued, according to Save the Children. “In the past few weeks there have been hundreds of airstrikes in and around Hodeidah, endangering the lives of an estimated 150,000 children still trapped in the city,” NGO representative Kirolos said.