Yemen's Children Face 'Worst Diphtheria Outbreak'

Rasa - A major international charity warned that deaths caused by diphtheria, a serious bacterial infection, are "likely to rise" in Yemen if a blockade imposed by a Saudi-led military coalition is not lifted.

News ID: 435933

Date: 22 January 2018 - 17:39

RNA - Save the Children said in a statement on Sunday that minors in the war-torn country were the most affected in what it called "the worst diphtheria outbreak for a generation", Al-Jazeera reported.

The aid organisation added that since August it recorded at least 52 deaths from the disease, the majority of which were children under the age of 15, while some 716 others were infected during the same time period.

"There's so little help right now that families are carrying their children for hundreds of miles to get to us," Mariam Aldogani, the group's field coordinator in the port city of Hudaydah, said, adding that "But they're arriving too late and infecting people on the way."

According to Save the Children, the outbreak has hit the Western provinces of Ibb and Hudaydah the hardest.

The cholera outbreak in Yemen which began in April, has also claimed over 2,200 lives and has infected about one million people, 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.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) had described the war in Yemen as a “war on children”, given the extensive damage that the conflict has caused to children in Yemen.

The UN's humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock stressed that People in war-torn Yemen are facing a situation that "looks like the Apocalypse", warning that the country could become the worst humanitarian disaster in half a century.

The United Nations said in mid-January, more than three-quarters of Yemenis are now in need of humanitarian aid as the brutal aggression launched by the Saudi-led coalition nears its fourth year.

Some 8.4 million people are at risk of famine, up from 6.8 million in 2017, the UN Humanitarian Affairs office (OCHA) stressed, saying a total of 22.2 million people, or 76 percent of Yemen’s population of 29 million, are dependent on some form of assistance, an increase of 1.5 million people over the past six months.

According to aid agencies, poor access to healthcare, clean water and sanitation put more people at risk of life-threatening diseases.

"Yemen is living with the catastrophic consequences of a protracted conflict that has destroyed much of its vital infrastructure and brought the health system to the brink of collapse," Mirella Hodeib, Spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said.

Hodeib added that the situation in Yemen "provided the optimal conditions for the growth and re-emergence of communicable diseases" such as malaria, diphtheria and cholera.

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 15,500 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.

The Saudi-led air campaign against Yemen has driven 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, according to several reports.

A UN panel has compiled a detailed report of civilian casualties caused by the Saudi military and its allies during their war against Yemen, saying the Riyadh-led coalition has used precision-guided munitions in its raids on civilian targets.

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