Millions of children in Yemen risk starving due to the Saudi-led coalition
YemenExtra
Y.A
More than five million children risk famine in war-torn Yemen as food and fuel prices soar, Save the Children said warning an entire generation may face death and “starvation on an unprecedented scale”.
The four-year campaign by the Saudi-led coalition, backed by the US, pushed the already impoverished country to the brink of famine, leaving many unable to afford food and water.
“This war risks killing an entire generation of Yemen’s children who face multiple threats, from bombs to hunger to preventable diseases like cholera.”
The already dire humanitarian situation is being exacerbated by the battle for the lifeline port of Hodeida, which is threatening to disrupt what little aid is trickling into the country.
Located on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, the city is controlled by the rebels and blockaded by Saudi Arabia and its allies.
Having already identified four million children at risk of starvation, Save The Children warned Wednesday another million could now face famine.
A total of 5.2 million children across Yemen are now at risk of starvation, according to the Britain-based NGO.
The World Food Programme last year warned that food had become a “weapon of war” in Yemen, where fighting, cholera and looming famine created what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations has warned that any major fighting in Hodeida could halt food distributions to eight million Yemenis dependent on them for survival. The country’s economy and population of 22 million people depend almost entirely on imports.
In March 2015, the US -backed –Saudi-led coalition started a war against Yemen with the declared aim of crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement, who had taken over from the staunch Riyadh ally and fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, while also seeking to secure the Saudi border with its southern neighbor. Three years and over 600,000 dead and injured Yemeni people and prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country, the war has yielded little to that effect.
Despite the coalition claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.
However, Saudi Arabia relies heavily on the US in its brutal war on Yemen. Washington has deployed a commando force on the Arab kingdom’s border with Yemen to help destroy arms belonging to Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement. Washington has also provided logistical support and aerial refueling.