Local Editor
A haunted look in the eyes of Amal Hussain, an emaciated 7-year-old lying silently on a hospital bed in northern Yemen, seemed to sum up the dire circumstances of her war-torn country.
A portrait of the starving girl published in the New York Times last week, drew an impassioned response from readers. They expressed heartbreak. They offered money for her family. They wrote in to ask if she was getting better.
On Thursday, Amal’s family said she had died at a ragged refugee camp 6km from the hospital.
“My heart is broken,” said her mother, Mariam Ali, who wept during a phone interview. “Amal was always smiling. Now I’m worried for my other children.”
Images of malnourished Yemenis like Amal – one of 1.8 million severely malnourished children in Yemen – have thus far failed to spur the international community into action over the brutal Saudi-led military campaign, which is starving an entire nation.
The United Nations warns that the number of Yemenis relying on emergency rations, 8 million, could soon rise to 14 million.
Source: News Agencies, Edited By Website Team
