Yemen is facing a “vicious combination” of extreme food shortages and what is the world’s worst cholera outbreak, according to a statement from three UN agencies released this week.
In a joint statement released after their visit to the war-torn nation, Anthony Lake, executive director of UNICEF, David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said the country was on the “brink of famine” with more than 60 per cent of the country’s population unsure where their next meal is coming from even while in the last three months it had also seen 400,000 cases of suspected cholera and almost 1,900 associated deaths.
Noting that almost two million Yemeni children are “acutely malnourished”, they said: “Malnutrition makes them more susceptible to cholera; diseases create more malnutrition. A vicious combination”.
The agency heads said at one hospital they entered, “we visited children who can barely gather the strength to breathe”. “We spoke with families overcome with sorrow for their ill loved ones and struggling to feed their families. And, as we drove through the city, we saw how vital infrastructure, such as health and water facilities, have been damaged or destroyed.”
While they sounded a note of hope in saying that more than 99 per cent of people sick with suspected cholera who can access health services are now surviving and report doctors, nurses and other essential health staff are working “around the clock to save lives”, they said that the situation remains “dire”.
“Thousands are falling sick every day. Sustained efforts are required to stop the spread of disease. Nearly 80 per cent of Yemen’s children need immediate humanitarian assistance.”
Calling on the international community to “redouble its support” for the people of Yemen, they said the crisis requires an “unprecedented response”.
“If we fail to do so, the catastrophe we have seen unfolding before our eyes will not only continue to claim lives but will scar future generations and the country for years to come.”
