More than seven million children are threatening to starve to death in Yemen, according to the UNO Children’s Fund (UNICEF). More than half of the 14 million famine-stricken people in the impoverished country are children, UNICEF Regional Director Geert Cappelaere told AFP yesterday. Already 1.8 million children are exposed to acute malnutrition and 400,000 children are affected by severe acute malnutrition.
End the war „not enough“
Ending the war in Yemen, which has been going on for more than three years, is „not enough“ according to Cappelaere. The country then needed a comprehensive reconstruction. The war merely exacerbates the already bad situation after years of underdevelopment.
Cappelaere said more than 6,000 children in Yemen have been killed or seriously injured since 2015. „Those are the numbers we could verify, but we can assume the numbers are higher – much higher,“ he said.
Thousands of civilians among the dead
In Yemen, since 2015, there has been a war between Houthi rebels and the troops of President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi, supported by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. According to UN figures, the conflict has already killed around 10,000 people, including thousands of civilians.
According to the UN, the situation in Yemen is the most serious humanitarian crisis worldwide. More than 22 million people – three quarters of the population – need humanitarian aid.
