AMMAN: The United Nations agency for children on Sunday warned that cholera would spread again in Yemen unless unconditional humanitarian access was given to aid organisations to prevent it.
Speaking ahead of the third anniversary of the conflict in Yemen, Geert Cappelaere, Unicef Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, called on authorities “in all parts of the country for humanitarian assistance to be allowed without any single condition.”
While the number of suspected cases declined in recent months,Yemen’s cholera and acute watery diarrhoea outbreak has spread to over one million people since last year.
“Let’s not fool ourselves. Cholera will come back. The rainy season will start in few weeks so without huge investment cholera will hit Yemeni people and children again,” he told a press conference in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Children under the age of 15 account for over 40 per cent of suspected cases and a quarter of deaths, according to Unicef.
Yemen, one of the Arab world’s poorest countries, has been embroiled in a devastating conflict between the government, backed by Saudi Arabia, and the Ansarullah fighters over the past three years. “We as Unicef, we as humanitarian community are losing precious time discussing conditions that are imposed by all sides, preventing us from delivering humanitarian assistance,” Cappelaere said, following a visit to the country last week.
During his visit, he went to the northern and southern parts of the country, which are controlled by rival sides of the civil war.
“The first task is a simple and straightforward one... the brutal war on children [must] stop; to stop not tomorrow but to stop now,” he said, adding that “none of the parties have shown the slightest respect for children.”
The UN official said that three years of war have doubled the number of children suffering from severe malnutrition from 200,000 in 2015. The civil war, which marks three years on Monday, has left the health and educational systems on the verge of collapse.
Close to two million children are no longer attending school or have never had the chance to attend school.
— Reuters
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