A
prominent international charity group says an estimated 130 children
or more are losing their lives every day in Yemen due to “extreme
hunger and disease,” warning the situation will deteriorate
unless a crippling blockade imposed on the impoverished nation by a
Saudi-led military coalition is lifted immediately.
“Without
urgent, unhindered access for humanitarian organizations and an
increase in funding, Save the Children is warning half of these
children will most likely go without treatment,” said the
UK-based group in a report on Thursday, warning that “if left
untreated, approximately 20-30 percent of children with severe acute
malnutrition will die each year.”
The
warning came less than two weeks after Saudi Arabia announced that it
was shutting down Yemen’s air, sea, and land borders, after Yemeni
Houthi Ansarullah fighters targeted an international airport near the
Saudi capital of Riyadh with a cruise missile in retaliation for
ceaseless bombardment of Yemen by the Saudi war machine over the past
two and a half years.
The
Saudi military, however, announced that it had intercepted the
missile, which apparently reached the deepest parts within the Saudi
territory.
“The
decision to block access entirely to the key entry points of Sana’a
Airport and the ports of Hudaydah and Salif puts thousands more
children at risk,” the charity agency added, predicting that
each of the provinces of Hudaydah and Ta'izz -- the most affected
regions by the ongoing “hunger crisis” -- would lose a staggering
10,000 children by the end of this year.
“These
deaths are as senseless as they are preventable. They mean more than
a hundred mothers grieving for the death of a child, day after day,”
said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children’s Yemen Country Director.
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