Children in Yemen at catastrophic risk of starvation

After seven years of brutal conflict there is a four-month fragile truce in Yemen. But its children remain on the front line of a battle against starvation, a struggle that is claiming thousands of lives.

Yemen is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with over 23 million people, or 75 per cent of its population, in need of humanitarian assistance.

The country was in a food crisis even before the war in Ukraine triggered a global food shortage. Now more than 400,000 of its children face severe acute malnutrition this year.

Without urgent assistance many will not survive. Others will not catch up on their physical or mental development, with lifelong consequences.

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And not alone is there a devastating food crisis, but a lack of hygiene and wash services are increasing the risk of cholera, measles, diphtheria and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

All of this puts strain on an already fragile health system. Half of all hospitals and health facilities are no longer functioning and those that remain face massive shortages in medicine, equipment and staff.

Unicef is one of the very few organisations still operating in Yemen, helping millions of children, but their needs are huge - and growing.

It’s now a race against time as Unicef staff on the ground work around the clock to provide emergency food for children in urgent need of treatment.

Though Yemen has “fallen off news screens” as a result of eight years of conflict and other new emerging crises, the humanitarian situation there is actually worsening, warns Philippe Duamelle, Unicef’s representative in Yemen.

Yemeni children are still dying of preventable causes. In fact, every 10 minutes a child dies from a preventable cause here

“Yemeni children are still dying of preventable causes. In fact, every 10 minutes a child dies from a preventable cause here,” he says.

With much of the country’s sanitation infrastructure in need of urgent repair, it is struggling even to provide water. Climate change is making things even worse. “This year the rains didn’t come at all,” he explains.

People are increasingly dependent on ground water pumping stations. But these require fuel and the war in Ukraine has pushed up energy prices.

Yemen imports 90 per cent of its foodstuffs and is struggling to cope with rising food prices too. Around 40 per cent of its wheat is imported from Ukraine and Russia, leading to an immediate impact on the price of flour.

Yemen is now teetering on the brink of catastrophe, with 17.4 million people in need of food assistance.

Some 2.2 million under-fives are acutely malnourished. Of those, nearly half a million are facing severe acute malnutrition, putting them at risk of death.

It is a “massive nutritional crisis” warns Duamelle, who says a significant proportion of Yemeni children already suffer from stunting, where their height does not match their age.

That’s the situation 18-month-old toddler Ghosson, pictured, was in six months ago, as she struggled with severe acute malnutrition.

Her parents, Ibrahim and Wardah, still fight back emotion when speaking about the day, six months ago, that they nearly lost her.

At the time Ghosson had diarrhoea, high fever and a racking cough. She was lethargic and couldn’t keep any food down.

With no money for medicine, Ibrahim went to the nearest hospital. Doctors wrapped a coloured tape, called a MUAC band, around her arm. Short for Mid-Upper Arm Circumference, it enables health workers and parents to spot severe acute malnutrition.

Ghosson measured “red” on the tape, the highest alert. At 12 months old she weighed just 5kg, the same as a two-month-old baby.

I hoped at that moment for the earth to open up and swallow me

“I hoped at that moment for the earth to open up and swallow me,” says Ghosson’s father, Ibrahim, who says he felt deeply ashamed he could not afford to pay for the food and medicines she needed. But after seven years of conflict, work was impossible to come by.

Within days of being admitted to the nutrition ward at the Unicef-supported hospital in Aden, where lifesaving ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) such as peanut paste, vitamin-enriched milk and antibiotics are provided for free, his daughter’s condition began to improve.

That treatment cannot be provided without help from Unicef donors around the world, including Ireland. Unfortunately, the price of RUTF has risen by 16 per cent in recent weeks.

Even as the needs of Yemen’s children grow, so too does the price of treating them. It is why fresh donations are now urgently needed.

Ghosson is well on the road to recovery, but up to half a million more Yemeni children are facing into the same dire situation this year. Without RUTF the outlook is bleak.

In March the UN put out a humanitarian plea for $4.3 billion. “It’s now July and we have gotten just over a quarter of that, 26 per cent,” says Duamelle.

Unicef buys fuel to pump water from the ground. “Right now we have enough money to do that until the end of July, but not beyond. God knows what is going to happen after that,” he worries. “We have to scale back some of our nutritional programmes too, because we are running out of funds. This is a catastrophic situation.

“Many children in Yemen are experiencing their first ever taste of peace. The fact that they are now in danger from lack of food is simply harrowing.

“It’s the perfect storm - their needs are going up at a time when the money to provide it is going down. Their situation is declining all the time,” he says.

It is so hard to comprehend that in the 21st century people are dying from not enough food

“It is so hard to comprehend that in the 21st century people are dying from not enough food. And it is not as if food isn’t available. If you go to the markets, you will see meat, vegetables and other food for sale. The problem is that most of the population of Yemen can’t afford it.”

You can save a child from starvation today by providing life-saving emergency food. With €50, you can supply enough emergency food to treat 10 dangerously malnourished children who will not get better without help.

Please go to unicef.ie to support this emergency appeal