CAIRO (AP) – More than 2 million children in Yemen under the age of 5 are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, four UN agencies said on Friday, urging stakeholders to end the long-running conflict that has brought poor country of the Arab world on the verge of famine.
The UN report warned that almost one in six of these children – 400,000 of the 2.3 million – are at risk of death due to severe acute malnutrition this year, a significant increase from last year’s estimates. The report also said that the lack of funds is hampering humanitarian programs in Yemen, as donor nations have failed to meet their commitments.
In the context of the crisis, some 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women in Yemen are also projected to be acutely malnourished this year.
“These figures are another cry for help from Yemen, where every malnourished child also means a family struggling to survive,” said David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, who issued the joint report. with the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF and the World Health Organization.
“The crisis in Yemen is a toxic mixture of conflict, economic collapse and a severe funding shortage,” Beasley said. In 2020, Yemen’s humanitarian programs received only $ 1.9 billion of the $ 3.4 billion needed, the report said.
UNICEF estimates that virtually all 12 million children in Yemen need some form of assistance. These can include food aid, health services, clean water, tuition and cash grants to help the poorest families escape.
“But there is a solution to the famine and that is the food and the cessation of violence,” Beasley said.
The Yemenis have suffered for six years of bloodshed, destruction and humanitarian catastrophe. In 2014, Houthi rebels allied with Iran seized the capital and much of the north. A Saudi-led coalition launched a radical military intervention Monday to restore the UN-backed government. Despite relentless Saudi airstrikes and the blockade of Yemen, the war has stalled.
Last week, President Joe Biden announced that the US will no longer support the Saudi-led coalition. But achieving peace will be a difficult path.
Biden also reversed the Trump administration’s designation of Houthis as a terrorist organization. This move was welcomed by aid groups working in Yemen, who feared that the designation would disrupt the flow of food, fuel and other goods that would barely keep Yemenis alive.
“Malnourished children are more vulnerable to disease … It is a vicious and often deadly cycle, but with relatively cheap and simple interventions, many lives can be saved,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.