DUBAI: More than 11 million Yemeni children need humanitarian aid as a result of a war raging since March 2015, the UN’s humanitarian coordination agency OCHA said on Monday.
A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 to restore the legitimate, internationally-recognised government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi after Iran-backed Al Houthi rebels forced him into exile.
OCHA, which described the conflict as “devastating” said children are facing “the largest food security crisis in the world and an unprecedented cholera outbreak”.
“Deprived of access to basic health and nutrition services, children are unable to fulfil their potential,” it said in a statement.
Children in Yemen are dying of “preventable causes like malnutrition, diarrhoea, and respiratory tract infections,” it said.
“The education system is on the brink of collapse, with more than five million children at risk of being deprived of their right to education.”
The United Nations has listed Yemen as the world’s number one humanitarian crisis, with seven million people on the brink of famine and a cholera outbreak that has caused more than 2,000 deaths.
