Yemen fighting displaces 71,000 children, worsens malnutrition: UNICEF
More than a quarter of the nearly 2,900 children screened by UNICEF in recent weeks were acutely malnourished.
Fighting in Yemen is disrupting access to healthcare and treatment centres, causing a rise in acute malnutrition among children, the United Nations children’s agency has said.
Yemen’s UNICEF country representative, Akhil Iyer, told reporters at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on Friday that hunger and malnutrition are afflicting an ever-increasing number of children in Yemen, as violence escalates in the country.
Iyer said that 71,000 children are among the nearly 130,000 people displaced in Yemen over the past three weeks, most of whom were uprooted from or within the southwestern governorate of Taiz.
“Beyond being uprooted from their homes, too many children have already paid the heaviest price in this conflict,” he said. “Behind every one of those children is a parent living through the unimaginable – grief, fear, or the agony of not knowing.”