NEW YORK (Dispatches) – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has issued a warning about an increase in the number of kids experiencing severe food insecurity in a number of nations, particularly Yemen.
UNICEF stated in a report on Saturday that active conflicts and the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, and Lebanon have affected more than 58 million people, more than half of whom are children.
The report added that children in Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon, and Syria are at risk of facing the impact of acute food insecurity, with Yemen remaining at the highest levels of alert.
The report revealed a significant increase in the number of polio cases in Yemen, which constitutes a great danger and threatens the occurrence of a pandemic, pointing to the largest annual decrease in funding for any coordinated plan in the world.
The report’s authors warned of rising humanitarian needs across the country, including the acute threat of famine in some areas.
Last week, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health and Population as confirming that the Saudi-led blockade on Yemen has raised acute malnutrition rates to more than 632,000 children under the age of five and 1.5 million pregnant and lactating women.
“The siege and intense bombardment with prohibited weapons caused a high rate of congenital abnormalities and miscarriages, with an average of 350,000 miscarriages and 12,000 malformations,” it emphasized.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the U.S. and its other regional allies, launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015. The kingdom also imposed a blockade on the war-hit country in the same year.
The eight years of war have killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. The U.S. and other Western countries have been providing Saudi Arabia and its allies with arms and logistics support.
Not only has the Saudi-led coalition failed to meet its objectives by launching the brutal war, but also killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and resulted in what the UN calls the world’s “worst humanitarian crisis.”