A human rights organization says 300 Yemeni children die every day due to malnutrition, as Saudi Arabia keeps bombing the southern impoverished neighbor in defiance of international calls to end its bloody war.
In a report published on Thursday, Yemen-based Entesaf Organization for Women and Child Rights said more than three million Yemeni children suffer from siege-inflicted malnutrition while more than 300 children lose their lives on a daily basis because of the serious condition.
The report, cited by Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, added that there are more than 3,000 children suffering from congenital abnormalities, while over 3,000 others need open heart surgery outside the impoverished country.
According to the appalling report, which was read during a press conference in capital Sana’a, 3,825 children have been killed and 4,157 others wounded since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s imposed war against Yemen six years ago.
The rights group further revealed that the number of Yemeni children with various disabilities cause by the ongoing war reached 5,559 cases, while the cases of tumors developed among children recorded 71,000 since the beginning of the brutal war.
Saudi Arabia, supported by its regional and Western allies, launched the devastating military aggression against its southern neighbor in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allied states and with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western states.
The aim was to return to power the former Riyadh-backed regime and crush the popular Ansarullah movement which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.
The war has stopped well shy of all of its goals, despite killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and turning entire Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
An all-out blockade was also imposed on Yemen since the onset of the bloody war, pushing Yemen into the world's worst humanitarian crisis, including by hampering access to aid.
The tight siege, among others, led to the closure of the Sana’a International Airport, the largest and most important airport in Yemen, and closed the Hudaydah port, which acts as a lifeline for the impoverished nation.
According to Entesaf on Thursday, the closure of Sana’a International Airport prevented more than 30,000 children with various chronic diseases from travelling abroad for treatment.
A staggering 15 million Yemenis, more than half of whom are children, do not have access to safe water, sanitation, or hygiene.