PNN – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced that one in two children under the age of five in Yemen is acutely malnourished, and more than half a million children of this age suffer from fatal wasting.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network from New Arab, a decade of conflict in Yemen has destroyed childhood and left an entire generation fighting for survival, as the humanitarian crisis in the country deepens, UNICEF warned.
Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Yemen, said at a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday, speaking from Sanaa: One in two Yemeni children under the age of five are acutely malnourished.
He added: More than 537,000 children suffer from acute malnutrition, which is a distressing, life-threatening and entirely preventable condition.
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Hawkins noted that malnutrition weakens the immune system, stunts growth and destroys children’s abilities. This is not just a health crisis in Yemen; it is a death sentence for thousands of people.
International organizations have announced that 11 million Yemeni children are in need of urgent support and assistance, and more than 2 million of them are suffering from severe malnutrition.
The problems and suffering of Yemeni children reflect part of the suffering of all segments of the population in this country, which has been caused by the war and difficult conditions of the past few years. However, children are the greatest victims of this dire situation, having struggled with death, hunger, displacement, and disease in the past few years.
Physical and mental disabilities, health problems, and diseases resulting from food shortages or unhealthy nutrition, the lack of a healthcare system, clean water, and poor economic conditions are among the problems that have affected all segments of the Yemeni people, especially children.
International reports also report that about 22 million Yemeni citizens are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, and consider the current crisis in Yemen to be the largest current crisis in the world.
For more than eight years, Yemen has witnessed continuous war between the armed forces and Yemeni Popular Committees and coalition forces, the consequences of which are reflected in various dimensions and, according to a UN report, has become the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.