New York, May 15 (QNA) – UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (UNOCHA) Tom Fletcher said that the humanitarian situation in Yemen is deteriorating, and children are the most in peril.
“The humanitarian situation is deteriorating and those most in peril are the country’s children. The numbers say it all: Half of Yemen’s children – or 2.3 million – are malnourished. 600,000 of them severely so.”
During a briefing to the UN Security Council (UNSC), Fletcher said, “Only 69 percent of children under one year of age are fully immunized, and 20 percent of them have received no vaccines at all – one of the worst rates in the world.
“As a result, vaccine-preventable diseases are compounding the humanitarian crisis. Cholera and measles cases are rising,” he added.
“Last year Yemen accounted for over a third of global cholera cases and 18 percent of related deaths, while also reporting one of the highest measles burdens globally,” Fletcher indicated.
The UN official pointed out that “malnutrition also now affects 1.4 million pregnant and breastfeeding women, placing mothers and newborns at grave risk. ”
Overall, 9.6 million women and girls are in severe need of life-saving humanitarian support, facing hunger and a collapsing healthcare system, he explained.
“We are running out of time and resources. Yemen’s 2025 humanitarian response plan is barely 9 percent funded – less than half of what we received at the same time last year. These shortfalls have very real consequences. Nearly 400 health facilities – including 64 hospitals – will stop operating, impacting nearly 7 million people,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher warned.