War-affected Yemeni children at food risk

MEDIA reported that three UN agencies have appealed for emergency food aid to conflict-torn Yemen to avoid a humanitarian “catastrophe” that will hit children hardest. The Arabian state plunged into its own Arab Spring in 2015 when two factions divided the state and formed a separate government, resulting in a civil war. The assessment of the UN agencies — FAO, UNICEF and WFP — found unprecedented levels of hunger with the number of people who could not be sure of having enough to eat going up by three million in seven months. A total of 17.1 million people are now struggling to feed themselves with 7.3 million of those in need of emergency assistance out of its total population 27.4 million. Acute starvation and poverty provoked many in Yemen to become so desperate that the poorest there are turning to rubbish for food. In this 21st century, when many developed countries waste millions of tonnes food grain for surplus production, starvation of millions of children cannot comfort global leaders.

The fighting since 2015, predominantly between the Houthi rebels and loyalists of President Mansur Hadi, has killed more than 10,000 people including approximately 4,000 civilians. Yemen has been turned into the battlefield of the new phase of the old war between Shia and Sunni sects as the Saudi-led coalition is backing the Sunni-dominant government against rebels backed by Iran. As the civil war escalated in March 2015, the slump in agricultural production across the country has contributed to the malnutrition and famine. UNICEF said the children who are severely and acutely malnourished are 11 times more at risk of death as compared to their healthy peers, if not treated in time. If the status quo goes on unchanged, the food insecurity issue will be more worrying.

The world leaders’ silence over the Yemen crisis is pathetic as it seems that the children starving to death in the Arab Peninsula are of no concern to them. But the alliance cannot escape their responsibility for the war so that they should provide food for the war affected children. If they provide arms and ammunition and bomb why not then provide food? The USA, UK, and France though inactive in the battlefield cannot avoid their responsibility as the states are backing Saudi Arabia and Russia and Iran are backing the rebels that constitute both sides of the civil war.

Political factions in Yemen are unlikely to find a mutually acceptable compromise on the distribution of power, and militias will be reluctant to give up their arms. Reconstruction will depend not just on peace but regional donors at a time when Gulf oil revenues are shrinking. Yemen was not just already incredibly impoverished before the war began but also on the brink of financial insolvency. The global powers must stop this madness and arrange a people’s government soon that can solve the political dispute. Until reaching the consensus, the world should provide the children enough food to survive.