537,000 Yemeni Kids Risk “Severe Malnutrition” – UNICEF

Humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Yemen

Ongoing crisis in Yemen has caused “alarming malnutrition levels” among children due to the limited availability of and lack of access to food due to blocked or damaged delivery routes and restrictions on food and fuel imports caused by the conflict, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.

“To address increasing malnutrition levels, aid agencies have scaled up assistance and treated 97,000 children for severe acute malnutrition in the past six months, while 65,000 children have been treated for moderate acute malnutrition,” said a senior official at UN HQ.

Some 537,000 children, or one out of eight children under age five, are now at risk of severe acute malnutrition in Yemen, compared to 160,000 children before the conflict, UNICEF estimates.

In addition the millions of civilians suffering from the violence, “almost 1.3 million children under five are moderately malnourished compared with 690,000 children prior to the crisis.”

“Yemen’s alarming malnutrition levels are aggravated by the limited availability of, and lack of access to food, due to blocked or damaged delivery routes and restrictions on food and fuel imports,” UNICEF said.

• As of October 2, 2015, unremitting violence in Yemen have left at least 505 children dead, 702  injured and more than 1.7 million at risk of malnutrition.

• Nearly 10 million children—80 per cent of the country’s under-18 population—need urgent humanitarian assistance.

• More than 1.4 million people have been forced to flee their homes.