Local Editor
The United Nations children agency (UNICEF) on Saturday said every 10 minutes, an under-five-year-old Yemeni child died of preventable diseases and severe malnutrition.
The children were dying from starvation and disease as trucks with life-saving supplies were blocked in Hodeida -- which is under siege by Saudi Arabia and its allies, said Geert Cappelaere, Middle East director for UNICEF.
“Already 1.8 million Yemeni children are malnourished, and more than 400,000 of them suffering from severe acute malnutrition,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
The official made the remarks after meeting with families in Hodeida and Sana’a.
Earlier, media reports showed that a seven-year-old severely malnourished Yemeni girl, whose picture recently further alerted the international community to the disaster-hit nation’s plight, had died amid an ongoing Saudi-led war on the country.
Amal Hussein’s picture turned up in The New York Times last week, showing her lying on a bed at a health center in Aslam in the northwestern Yemen Hajjah Province, 144 kilometers (90 miles) northwest of the capital, Sana’a. Her mother, Mariam Ali, has told the paper that she died on October 26.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
