HAYS, Yemen (AP) An emaciated little girl lies motionless on a hospital bed and struggles to breathe. Her body is covered with sores. She can barely open her eyes. Hafsa Ahmed is about 2. About a dozen other children in the red-brick hospital in this southern Yemeni city are also dying of starvation.
Hunger has long threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yemen’s children. Now, the eight-year war between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition is threatening to return after a six-month truce.
Hunger has long threatened the lives of Yemen’s children. Now, a conflict between the country’s Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition could make things worse.
Starvation has threatened Yemen’s children for years. Now, as civil war threatens to escalate after months of a tenuous truce, there are fears that things could get worse. The United Nations estimates that 500,000 children are at risk of starvation in this impoverished Arabian Peninsula country. In the southern city of Hodeida, dozens show up every month at a clinic. The crisis has been brought on by the country’s civil war but also by skyrocketing food prices due to the conflict in Ukraine, from where Yemen used to get 40% of its wheat.