Current Situation in Yemen:
Yemen has been declared as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with more than 24 million people, out of which 12 million are children, in need of humanitarian assistance. The conflict in the country, escalated around March 2015, and the country has become a living hell for children.
The country was already reeling from the effects of the civil war and a famine since 2016, but now, the situation has worsened with the recent outbreak of coronavirus and cholera at the same time. The Yemen famine, left 2.2 million children in the country, malnourished. Due to the raging war and unhygienic living conditions, clean water and food are in short supply. Only half of the healthcare facilities are in a working condition and even out of these, some don’t have the basic supply of essential items such as; masks and gloves. Majority of the healthcare professionals are working on very little or no salary and nearly 10.2 million children don’t have access to even basic healthcare facilities.
A Country on the Brink of a Famine:
The Yemen crisis has crippled the country’s economy. Thousands of civilian structures have been destroyed and people are struggling to survive. Basic healthcare and facilities such as clean water supply, are on the verge of collapsing. Even before the Yemen crisis, nearly 90% of the food in the country, had to be imported. But the warring parties have made it extremely difficult to import any food into the country. The food prices have been on the rise for nearly a decade and are now almost 20% higher than what they were, 10 years back. The poor people of the country, have no source of income left and majority of them are surviving just on sugar and water.
What’s worrying is that nearly 10 million Yemenis, are on the brink of a famine. On top of this, Yemen has also been hit hard by the worst cholera crisis ever seen. The cholera outbreak has spread to nearly every nook and cranny of the country. A whopping 1.3 million cases of cholera have been reported to this day and nearly 3000 people have died. The recent coronavirus outbreak, has made things even worse for the country with nearly 1000 cases reported and an alarmingly high death rate. Millions of people are now at risk of dying due to malnutrition, raging war, cholera and coronavirus outbreak.
A Country’s Cry For Help:
Yemen is in the middle of a true humanitarian crisis storm and the children of the country are in the eye of this storm. A devastating fact had surfaced the internet a few days back, stating that, in Yemen, 1 child dies every 5 minutes from malnutrition. UNICEF has declared that it requires almost half a billion dollars to save the children of the country. UNICEF also declared that without the necessary humanitarian aid, nearly 19 million people, out of which 1 million are pregnant women, will lose access to basic healthcare facilities. What’s even more sad is that, Yemenis feel that they’ve been forgotten by this world. We need to step up and save the country before it disappears from the face of the earth.
How Can We Help?
- Donate to the organization called ‘Doctors without Borders‘. This is the only organization running a treatment center for coronavirus patients in southern Yemen.
- Try to donate to the World Food Program which feeds millions of Yemenis every month.
- Local Yemen organizations such as ‘Mona’ are working towards providing humanitarian relief to people.Donate to the organizations as much as possible.
- At last, try and spread awareness about Yemen crisis as much as you can.
Before being citizens of India, we are citizens of the earth. It is our moral responsibility towards humanity, to help those in need. Yemen had already been suffering for nearly a decade, but it needs help now more than ever. We as a society, need to step up and save Yemen from disappearing. Otherwise, we all will live to regret it.
