UN: 400,000 Yemeni children in severe risk of dying of starvation

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The UN has warned that “About 400,000 children under the age of five are in danger of dying of acute malnutrition in war-torn and impoverished Yemen.”

The UN agencies cautioned on Friday that “Half of those in the most vulnerable age bracket, 2.3 million small children, are projected to suffer from severe malnutrition this year.”

“These numbers are yet another cry for help from Yemen where each malnourished child also means a family struggling to survive,” World Food Program chief David Beasley said in a joint statement.

The number of Yemeni children in danger of death from lack of food has increased to 400,000, an increase of 22 percent over 2020.

For its part, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF spokesperson Henrietta Fore anticipated that “More children will die with every day that passes without action.”

“Humanitarian organisations need urgent resources and unhindered access to communities on the ground in order to be able to save lives.”

The UN agencies warned that about 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women are also expected to suffer from extreme malnutrition in 2021.

“The crisis in Yemen is a toxic mix of conflict, economic collapse and a severe shortage of funding to provide the life-saving help that’s desperately needed,” said Beasley.

“But there is a solution to hunger, and that’s food and an end to the violence.”

Today, millions of Yemenis are on the brink of famine with the economy destroyed, schools and hospitals barely functioning, and tens of thousands killed.

According to the United Nations, more than three million people have been displaced and close to 80 percent of the 29-million population is in need of some form of aid for survival.

The UN says that in 2020 it received only $1.43 billion of the $3.2 billion needed to fund aid projects in Yemen