MSF: Increase in Bombing, Disease Making Life Unbearable for Civlians in Yemen
Local Editor
The medical humanitarian organization, Doctors without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres [MSF], warned on Monday that the living conditions in Yemen are worsening by the week, with an increase in disease and nonstop bombing making life unbearable for many civilians.
Teresa Sancristόval, head of the emergency unit overseeing Yemen for Doctors without Borders indicated in a press briefing on Monday that the situation in Yemen had rapidly deteriorated since March 26, when Saudi Arabia began its campaign of airstrikes against Yemen and imposed a blockade on imports, including food, medicine and fuel.
"The situation in the country, it is really, really getting worse every week," said Sancristόval. "The de facto blockade is having an enormous impact on the population."
Populated areas like markets, schools and camps for Yemen’s 1.2 million internally displaced people have all experienced violence, she said.
"It’s clear that since March, the level of violence has radically increased in the country," Sancristόval said.
During her recent trip to Yemen, she said, she counted 100 bombs fall in one night-a rate of roughly one bomb every 10 minutes-and met two surviving members of a family of 27, three generations of whom had been killed in bombing in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa.
Additionally, more than 6 million people in Yemen are at risk of starvation and half the population is experiencing a shortage of food, UK-based nonprofit Oxfam said recently last month [July].
Reports indicated that hospitals are running out of supplies such as oxygen, and chronic patients are dying as treatments become unavailable.
The World Health Organization said in June that more than 3,000 cases of dengue fever have been reported in Yemen since March.
MSF workers had been "so overwhelmed with the number of injuries" that they hadn’t been able to focus on it, said Sancristόval.
The situation is now comparable to Syria, where lack of vaccinations has led to new outbreaks of diseases like measles that had previously been tackled, she further said.
