According to Save the Children, 85,000 children under age five could have died due to severe acute malnutrition since the start of conflict in Yemen nearly four years ago.
The fighting has brutally intensified in their port city, Hodeidah, where the executive director of the World Food Programme is sending a message to the world.
DAVID BEASLEY
Executive Director, WFP
“We are now supporting over eight million people in this country. It appears that, because of the war, we are going to have to scale up to maybe 12 million people. That’s why I am here in this port today to send a very clear message to the world that we need to protect this port at all costs, to function at the highest capacity, because if we don’t, then people are going to die.”
The World Food Programme is trying to ensure that the port remains open to receive food, despite the conflict. Currently the commercial imports have decreased by 55,000 metric tons each month.
NAGLAA ELSONBOLY
Head of the Pediatric Department, Al Sabeen hospital
“People are from areas that are so poor, there is… they are lacking food, as I told you we say mothers that cannot afford milk for their kids, so they bring the rice to boil and take the white water of the rice and feed their kids, as if it is milk.”
The violence in Yemen has not only killed 10,000 people, but it has led to the worst global famine in 100 years. The UN estimates 14 million people are starving to death and 400,000 will suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year, 15,000 more than in 2017.
