Number of Cholera Cases in Yemen's Coastal Regions Spikes

Rasa - According to reports, the number of suspected cholera cases in regions along Yemen's Western coast has significantly increased.

News ID: 432128

Date: 03 September 2017 - 19:04

RNA - The number of suspected cholera cases in regions along Yemen's Western coast, including Al-Hudaydah province, has significantly increased, the international non-governmental organization Save the Children said in a statement, Sputnik reported.

"An outbreak of cholera has spiked dramatically in several areas of Yemen, including its largest governorate of Hudaydah, Save the Children is warning… In the coastal Hudaydah Governorate, where the charity runs malnutrition and cholera treatment centres, suspected cholera cases have jumped by 40% over the past three weeks amid heavy rains and a heatwave," the statement added.

According to the statement, the number of suspected cholera cases in the Raymah governorate increased by 18 percent over the last three weeks, while the number of cases in the port of Aden grew by 12 percent.

The UN humanitarian chief had decried the “man-made catastrophe” in Yemen, stressing air strikes and armed clashes have increased dramatically, with millions of people facing the specter of famine and “the world’s largest-ever, single-year cholera outbreak.”

Stephen O’Brien urged the immediate reopening of the airport in the capital Sana’a to civilians and the lifting of restrictions on commercial imports coming through the port of Al-Hudaydah, which handles some 70 percent of goods coming into Yemen.

“The Yemeni people’s suffering has relentlessly intensified,” he told the UN Security Council, adding that “in 2017, the number of air strikes per month is three times higher than last year, and monthly reports of armed clashes are up by more than 50 percent.”

He stressed that 17 million Yemenis don’t know where their next meal is coming from, nearly 7 million are facing the threat of famine and almost 16 million lack access to clean water and sanitation.

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, told the Security Council by video link that “it is no secret that there are many merchants of war in Yemen who do not want peace.”

But, he stressed that the UN will continue working with Yemenis “to mainstream the language of peace and reach a political solution.”

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen since March 2015 to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 14,300 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

According to several reports, the Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen has drove the impoverished country towards humanitarian disaster, as Saudi Arabia's deadly campaign prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country.

The cholera outbreak in Yemen which began in April, has also claimed 2,000 lives and has infected 500,000, as the nation has been suffering from what the World Health Organization (WHO) describes as the “largest epidemic in the world” amid a non-stop bombing campaign led by Saudi Arabia. Also Riyadh's deadly campaign prevented the patients from traveling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country.

According to reports, the cholera epidemic in Yemen, which is the subject of a Saudi Arabian war and total embargo, is the largest recorded in modern history.

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