News / Yemen

More than 11 million Yemeni children in dire need of aid, warns UN

Monday, 23 October 2017 7:12 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 23 October 2017 7:20 PM ]

Yemeni children carry food aid distributed by a local charity during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, in the capital Sana'a, on June 7, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that more than 11 million Yemeni children are in dire need of relief aid as a result of Saudi Arabia’s aggression against the impoverished country.

In a statement published on Monday, the agency described the conflict in Yemen as “devastating,” and said the Yemeni children were facing “the largest food security crisis in the world and an unprecedented cholera outbreak.”

"Deprived of access to basic health and nutrition services, children are unable to fulfill their potential," the statement said, adding that children in the war-ravaged country were dying of "preventable causes like malnutrition, diarrhea, and respiratory tract infections.”

The OCHA also pointed to the uncertain future of millions of schoolchildren in Yemen as thousands of teachers refuse to attend classes for not receiving their salaries during the past year.

"The education system is on the brink of collapse, with more than five million children at risk of being deprived of their right to education," the OCHA said.

This photo taken on March 16, 2017 shows Yemeni schoolgirls looking at a school that was damaged in an airstrike in the southern Yemeni city of Ta'izz. (Photo by AFP)

Since March 2015, Yemen has been under heavy airstrikes by Saudi Arabia’s warplanes as part of a brutal war against the Arabian Peninsula country in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.

More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign and much of the country’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been ravaged.

A Yemeni mother comforts her child, who is suspected of being infected with cholera, as they receive treatment at a hospital in the capital Sana'a, on August 12, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The Saudi war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic across Yemen.

According to data provided by the World Health Organization and Yemen’s Health Ministry, the country’s cholera outbreak, the worst on record in terms of its rapid spread, has infected 612,703 people and killed 2,048 since it began in April, with some districts still reporting sharp rises in new cases.

The United Nations also says the Saudi war has left some 17 million Yemenis hungry, nearly seven million facing famine, and about 16 million almost without access to water or sanitation.

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