Yemeni children on the brink of ‘serious’ famine :UN

YemenExtra

Y.A

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has concerned that over seven million children on the brink of famine in Yemen due to the Saudi-led coalition, backed by the US, campaign and blockade.

“Today, 1.8 million children under the age of five are facing acute malnutrition, and 400,000 are affected by severe acute malnutrition,” Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF’s regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, said late on Wednesday.

Cappelaere noted that “more than half” of the 14 million people at serious risk of famine in Yemen are children.

He said efforts to come up with a solution to the constant Yemeni conflict within the next 30 days were “critical” to develope aid distribution and save lives.

The high-ranking UN official said that over 6,000 children had either been killed or wounded since 2015.

In March 2015, the US -backed –Saudi-led coalition started  a war against Yemen with the declared aim of crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement, who had taken over from the staunch Riyadh ally and fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, while also seeking to secure the Saudi border with its southern neighbor. Three years and over 60,000 dead and injured Yemeni people and  prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country, the war has yielded little to that effect.