Local Editor

The international medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ [MSF], said that local medical teams and aid agencies in Yemen are overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis there and the strain of keeping health services going is taking a huge toll.
 
The MSF’s outgoing head of mission in Yemen, Andre Heller-Perache, said in an interview that, "The situation is way beyond our ability to face [it], and it’s way bigger than what the international aid system is able to cope with".

"The scale of the crisis is growing, and as time goes on it will continue to grow," he further said.

The health care system is on the verge of collapse, in a country where 21.1 million people - 80 percent of the population - urgently need aid, and there is a constant threat of disease outbreaks, according to the United Nations.

Local medical teams are working round the clock, but they lack drugs and other medical supplies, as well as fuel to run their generators. Several hospitals have been forced to close.
 
"You can bring some food aid to a group of people who need food, but they need more than food ... they need energy in their house, their children need to be able to go to school, people need to run their businesses," he said.
 
Heller-Perache, who was in Yemen in 2010 and 2011, and returned for two months this year [2015], said the ongoing fighting and economic restrictions placed on Yemen mean the country is "in a slow state of collapse right now".
 
A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out a military aggression against Yemen for almost three months since March 26 -- without a UN mandate -- in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement, and to restore power to Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who is a close ally of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi-led coalition has also maintained a blockade on imports of fuel, food and medicine.
 
The death toll has soared since the US-led Saudi aggression against Yemen began in March.
  At least 279 children have been killed and 402 injured in the past 10 weeks - four times the number , reported in the whole of 2014, according to the UN Children’s Fund [UNICEF] recently on Tuesday..
 
The UN also says that at least 2,600 people have been killed and 11,000 others injured due to the conflict in Yemen since March 19.