UNICEF reports that 540,000 Yemeni youngsters are ‘starving’
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Hashim Sheikh
- . March 25, 2023
- . Update: March 25, 2023 5:42 pm
According to the UN, a child dies from preventable causes every ten minutes in Yemen, where severe acute malnutrition affects more than 540,000 children under the age of five.
Without further financing, the UN agency for children, UNICEF, issued a warning that it might have to reduce its assistance to children in Yemen.
According to UNICEF, 11 million children worldwide require humanitarian aid. The UN raised only $1.2 billion for all of its agencies in Yemen at a pledging conference in Switzerland last month, far short of the $4.3 billion target, despite stating that it needed $484 million to continue aid this year.
“The financing gap UNICEF continued to suffer through 2022 and since the beginning of 2023 is putting the essential humanitarian response for children in Yemen at risk,” the organization warned.
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“Unicef may be compelled to reduce its essential assistance for vulnerable children if funding is not received,” the statement reads.
When the Houthi militia, which is backed by Iran, overthrew the government in Sanaa, the battle in Yemen officially started that year. The following year, an Arab coalition intervened to defend the legitimate government, and on March 26, 2015, they began their first assaults against Houthi positions.
Despite the expiration of a truce last year, combat has largely been stopped. Since the violence erupted in 2015, it is reported that at than 11,000 children have died or suffered injuries.
The UN views the conflict in Yemen as one of the worst humanitarian calamities it has ever seen. Two-thirds of Yemen’s population, or more than 21.7 million people, are predicted to require humanitarian aid this year.
