Posts
Monday,
11 June 2012
By
Nadia Mayen
Al
Arabiya with Agencies
Millions
of Yemenis are being left to starve due to lack of food and water since the
change of government which has pushed the country's political turmoil towards a
catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Nearly
half the country’s population has been afflicted but it is the hundreds of
thousands of children who face life-threatening levels of malnutrition and
starvation.
At
the Al-Sabeen Hospital For Motherhood, Childhood And Gynecology, a mother talks
about her son's condition which has stabilized in recent days.
“Almost
half a month ago, he was very ill, but now he just has difficulty breathing,”
said Sabah Mohamed.
According
to the head of the children’s department at the hospital, Dr. Riyadh Mansour,
the situation is now reaching its breaking point.
“Now we have an average one or two cases every
day of severe malnutrition which we classify as severe malnutrition. Mild
malnutrition is highly prevalent in Yemen and does not require
hospitalization,” he said.
“A case of severe malnutrition is like the one
you just saw, of the one-and-a-half year old who weighs just 4.5 kilograms,” he
said.
The
International Committee of the Red Cross on Wednesday called for a pause in
fighting so that they could gain access to deliver humanitarian aid to the
needy.
The
ICRC said it was seeking access from all sides, including the al-Qaeda-linked
Ansar al-Sharia, but had yet to secure it.
In
related news, the Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Bureau Of Democracy,
Conflict And Humanitarian Assistance, Nancy Lindborg, told a news conference
that the biggest concern was Yemeni peoples’ access to healthcare and clean
water.
“We must ensure that the children of Yemen --
who right now don’t have the chance they deserve because they are malnourished
and because they don't have access to water and to health -- we must ensure
that they are part of this transition and that they are part of successful
transition of Yemen,” she said.
The
Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs at the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation, Atta Al-Manan Bakhit, echoed Lindborg’s concerns,
suggesting the current crisis was worse than that in the Horn of Africa.
The
hunger issue in Yemen is tied to the political crisis in the country that is
currently undergoing a transition to democracy and fighting a war against
insurgents in the south. Yemeni political leaders plan to meet prominent
secessionists later this month in Cairo to prepare for a national dialogue
scheduled for August.
It
is hard to tell whether the country’s humanitarian crisis will figure in their
discussions.
“Many people do not know that the humanitarian
situation in Yemen is more dangerous than that of Somalia in July 2011,” he
said.
Gulf
Arab states and the West have pledged more than $4 billion in aid to the
impoverished state last month, of which $3.25 billion was provided by Saudi
Arabia alone.
However,
residents in Sana’a’s slums say they doubt they will see any of the money.
“We are seven living in one room; in this
place there are seven people. Where can we go with them? Where we will go with
our daughters?” said one mother as she prepared a meal to feed seven members.
“We are living, thank God, if we have food we
eat, if we don't we have to be patient with ourselves, until God bestows upon
us,” she added.
The
spokesman in Yemen for UNICEF said the crisis could not be underestimated.
"There
are approximately 10 million people in Yemen that lack access to food security.
There is also nearly a million Yemeni children suffering from chronic
malnutrition which will result in stunted growth and weight loss, as well as
approximately 276,000 Yemeni children under the age of five suffering from acute
malnutrition,” he said.
