The lives of children in Yemen are exhausted

In just nine months, little Suad clings to a life that runs out with every beat of her heart weakened by the severe malnutrition that she has endured as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars. children in Yemen, a country plunged into a war for four years. years and in the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

His mother holds Suad's weakened hand, who is breathing with a mechanical fan, in a bed at Sana'a's Al Sabaain hospital, while Saleh Yamaan's father watches her leaning against her. door, trying to hold back tears.

"I took her to three different hospitals for treatment against diarrhea, but she has not improved and now she is suffering from acute malnutrition," Efe Yamaan says, before babbling "Oh, my God!" raising his hand to the sky.

According to Unicef ​​data, the case of acute malnutrition Suad is one of the 1.8 million currently undermining childhood in Yemen, including 400,000 suffering from severe acute malnutrition and struggling daily for their survival. In addition, the UN agency estimates that in Yemen one in three children and one in five pregnant women and one in five mothers are at risk of acute malnutrition while 11.3 million children in the country need humanitarian aid

According to the UN, Yemen is currently the scene of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, as the country is plagued by a civil conflict that began in late 2014 and intensified from March 2015 because of the intervention of the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which is fighting the Houthi rebels.

The bomb attack on the coalition of Arab countries has ended the lives of children and women in their offensive to restore President Abdo Rabu Mansur Hadi in the Houthi-dominated government of Sanaa. , which enjoy the support of Iran.

Suad is surrounded by a team of doctors who are trying to revive her. Among them, Dr. Sohir al Madahyi, who explains to Efe that the girl "needs intensive care".

However, this hospital unit was replaced by a diphtheria treatment department by order of the new Houthi government health minister, Taha Mutawakel, he added.

The NGO Oxfam Intermón said this month that Yemen had recorded more than 1.1 million cases of cholera in the last 18 months, more than 2,000 deaths and more than 100 deaths from diphtheria in one country . similar period.

Fuad al Rimi, chief of the nurses of the unit in charge of treating cases of malnutrition at the hospital, told Efe that staff was suffering from a "lack of drugs" in the center, this which "forces the patient's relatives to buy them at the hospital at a high price."

Stresses the "pressure" with which he lives with his companions for the "large number of patients" they treat, because they can not be taken to intensive care after replacement of the diphtheria treatment unit.

It is also the "only" hospital dedicated to treating cases of acute malnutrition, he explained, so that children "suffering from acute malnutrition and living in remote areas of the capital die because of limited opportunities. their families the price of transport to take their children to the hospital ".

Um Eshraq, who cares for three of her children who are hospitalized for the disease, including two in the same bed, is responsible for the treatment of diphtheria, an infectious disease that can eventually lead to blockage of the airways. .

He assures Efe that his eldest daughter died of the disease in a village in the province of Al Mahuit, west of Sanaa. And his brother died shortly after.

Despite the bad news, Suad's health is improving though it is still part of the statistics.

Crisis The violence in Yemen, which has already caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, is on the verge of causing the worst famine in the world for several decades.

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