MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th July, 2022) The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stated on Thursday that the ongoing armed conflict in Yemen deprives women and girls of access to essential healthcare, aggravating the humanitarian crisis in the country.
According to the statistics of the ICRC, over 20.1 million people out of Yemen's total population of 30.5 million lack access to basic healthcare. Due to the armed conflict and crisis in the country, only half of the country's health facilities still function.
The conflict affects the most socially vulnerable groups of people. Some 4.2 million women and children are internally displaced and have to currently live in camps, lacking financial resources to travel long distances to medical facilities.
The ICRC reported that every two hours one mother and six newborns die because the access to skilled professional medical help is very limited. Apart from this, Yemeni women suffer from severe illnesses, like cancer. Women are often faced with a choice of traveling to seek medical help and getting attacked, harassed or caught in crossfire on the way or staying home with agonizing pains.
Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between government forces and the Houthis rebels since 2014. The situation was further aggravated in 2015 after a coalition led by Saudi Arabia joined the conflict on the Yemeni government's side and began conducting air, land, and sea operations against the Islamist rebel movement. The conflict has resulted in a major humanitarian crisis for the country.
