*SANAA – More than five million children are threatened by famine inwar-torn Yemen as prices soar, a charity said Wednesday, warning an entiregeneration may face death and “starvation on an unprecedented scale”.*
The three-year conflict between Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and Huthishas pushed the already impoverished country to the brink of famine, leavingmany unable to afford food and water.
“Millions of children don’t know when or if their next meal will come,”said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, head of Save the Children International.
“This war risks killing an entire generation of Yemen’s children who facemultiple threats, from bombs to hunger to preventable diseases likecholera.”
The already dire humanitarian situation is being exacerbated by the battlefor the lifeline port of Hodeida, which is threatening what little aid istrickling into the country.
“Any disruption to food and fuel supplies coming through Hodeida port couldcause starvation on an unprecedented scale,” said Save the Children.
Located on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, the port city of Hodeida is controlled bythe rebels and blockaded by Saudi Arabia and its allies.
At a hospital in Abs, north of Hodeida, skeletal children cried as theywere tended to and weighed by doctors and nurses, an AFP photographerreported.
Aid agencies have sounded the alarm over escalating violence between theHuthis and Saudi-led government alliance, which is now edging towardsHodeida after a UN attempt to bring warring parties to the negotiatingtable this month failed.
“The humanitarian situation is very fragile,” David Miliband, head of theNew York-based International Rescue Committee, told AFP as he wrapped up avisit to Yemen on Wednesday.
“My takeaway in three days in Yemen is that the humanitarian imperativedoesn’t just demand better flow of goods and better access for humanitarianworkers,” said the former British foreign secretary.
“It also demands a ceasefire to allow the peace process to proceed.”*‘Too weak to cry’*
The World Food Programme last year said food had become a “weapon of war”in Yemen, where fighting, cholera and looming famine have created what theUN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Having already identified four million children at risk of starvation, Savethe Children said an extra one million could now face famine as the Hodeidabattle escalates.
A total of 5.2 million children across Yemen are now at risk of starvation,the Britain-based charity said.
“In one hospital I visited in north Yemen, the babies were too weak to cry,their bodies exhausted by hunger,” said Thorning-Schmidt.
Food prices in some parts of the country have doubled in just a few days,and the non-governmental organisation said families faced impossiblechoices on whether to pay to take a sick baby to hospital at the expense offeeding the rest of the family.
The United Nations this week said food prices were up a whopping 68 percentsince 2015, when a regional military coalition led by Saudi Arabia joinedthe government’s war against the Huthi rebels.
The cost of a food basket, which contains pantry staples and canned goods,has increased by 35 percent and cooking gas and fuel prices by more than 25percent in the past year, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
The UN has said any major fighting in Hodeida could halt food distributionsto eight million Yemenis dependent on them for survival.
The country’s economy and population of 22 million people depend almostentirely on imports. – APP/AFP