Yemen: 2.4 Million Children Would be Facing Starvation by the End of the Year

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has published a new report entitled “Yemen Five Years On: Children, Conflict and COVID-19”.

As Yemen’s devastated health system and infrastructure struggles to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic, the new UNICEF report stressed that the already dire situation for children is likely to significantly deteriorate.

On its official website, UNICEF presented a summary of its new report as follows which highlights the following points:

· An additional 30,000 children could develop life-threatening severe acute malnutrition over the next six months, and the overall number of malnourished children under the age of five could increase to a total of 2.4 million –almost half of all under-fives in the country and a rise of around 20 per cent;

· An additional 6,600 children under the age of five could die from preventable causes by the end of the year – an increase of 28 per cent*;

· The health system is teetering closer to collapse. After years of conflict, only half of health facilities are operational, with huge shortages in medicine, equipment and staff;

· Poor access to water and sanitation is stoking the spread of COVID-19. Around 9.58 million children do not have sufficient access to safe water, sanitation, or hygiene.

The report also warned that unless US$54.5 million are received for health and nutrition services by the end of August:

· 23,500 children with severe acute malnutrition will be at increased risk of dying;

· Up to one million children will not receive vital micronutrient supplements and vitamin A, and 500,000 pregnant and breastfeeding mothers will miss out on essential nutrition support including counselling on infant and young child feeding, and folic acid and iron supplements;

· Five million children under the age of five years will not be immunised against killer diseases;

· 19 million people will lose access to healthcare, including one million pregnant, breastfeeding mothers, and their children.

In total UNICEF appealed for US$461 million to support its humanitarian response in Yemen, with an additional US$53 million for its COVID-19 response

alone. So far, the COVID appeal is only 10 % funded and the humanitarian appeal is only 39 % funded.

Source: www.unicef.org