Today, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Maria Calivis, concluded a two-day visit to Yemen. There, Ms. Calivis witnessed for herself the devastation that Yemeni
children have suffered.
Ms. Calivis was appointed last month. This is her first official visit to the country, where she met with officials to discuss the situation of the country’s children.
Yemen is the 11th-most food insecure country in the world. It is a country where one in three people go hungry every day. One in ten children do not live to see their fifth birthdays.
This year alone, 500,000 children in Yemen will likely lose their lives because of malnutrition or the consequences of malnutrition if the international community does not take action. The total number of malnourished children in this country of 20 million people stands at 750,000—a 100 per cent increase from 12 years ago.
Long-term hunger can turn illnesses that are not usually life-threatening into deadly ones. For instance, malnourished children can suffer complications from measles, leading to death, when the usual recovery time is only 2-3 weeks.
The current hunger crisis has been caused by a devastating combination of poverty, drought, political unrest, high fuel costs, rising food prices and the disintegration of
social protection services. All of these challenges, therefore, put children’s health and wellbeing on the line.
As many as 60 per cent of the internally displaced persons in Yemen, about 3,000, are children.
According to the World Food Programme, “multiple and simultaneous shocks have exacerbated the vulnerability of families and left millions trapped in absolute hunger and poverty.”
“Now more than ever is the time for a renewed commitment to a better, peaceful future for Yemen’s children. As the country prepares for the next phase, it is essential that children are given top priority in the political agenda. Their needs need to be met and their rights upheld,” Ms. Calivis said.
Geert Cappelaere is the UNICEF Representative in Yemen. Last month, he posed a question while speaking to the IRIN. ““Why is it that the international community gets mobilized primarily when it sees the dramatic outcome of a situation or a crisis that we could have seen coming for many, many years?” he asked.
Chronic malnutrition rates in the country are the second-worst in the world—an infamy second only to Afghanistan. Acute malnutrition levels exceed the emergency threshold levels set by international agencies and is nearing rates observed in famine-stricken southern
Somalia.