MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th February, 2021) Acute malnutrition threatens half of Yemeni children under five years old in 2021 as the war-hit country consolidates its position of one of the world's most dangerous places for kids to grow up, the United Nations said on Friday.
Earlier in the day, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization published a food security report on Yemen.
"Nearly 2.3 million children under the age of five in Yemen are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021 ... Of these, 400,000 are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition and could die if they do not receive urgent treatment," the four UN agencies said.
The projection comes on the back of the age group seeing acute malnutrition and severe acute malnutrition up by 16 percent and 22 percent, respectively, in 2020. Severe acute malnutrition thus neared record levels since the conflict escalated in 2015.
Malnutrition, the UN warns, poses a serious threat to a child's development, especially during the first two years of their life, often causing irreversible damage.
"The increasing number of children going hungry in Yemen should shock us all into action. More children will die with every day that passes without action. Humanitarian organizations need urgent predictable resources and unhindered access to communities on the ground to be able to save lives," UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said.
The humanitarian response, meanwhile, remains "critically underfunded," according to the press release.
