The World Health Organization (WHO) has voiced grave concern over the deterioration of the health conditions in the war-ravaged Middle Eastern country of Yemen.
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“The situation in Yemen in general is very difficult, because of the departure of health professionals who are fleeing the violence... This has led to a shortage of qualified health workers,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told a press conference in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday.
“More than 20 percent of all health facilities [in Yemen] are not functional or are only partially functional,” he added.
Jasarevic also warned that a severe shortage of funds has made it extremely difficult for the organization to provide the Yemeni people with urgent health services.
“We have asked for $151 million to meet the health needs of internally displaced people [in Yemen] until the end of this year… But we have only received $23 million so far,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the United Nations announced that the food crisis is spiraling out of control in the impoverished Arab country.
According to UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Hilal Elver, over 13 million Yemenis “are now surviving without adequate access to basic food supplies," six million of whom are “severely food insecure.”
The UN official also noted that the situation will even exacerbate in the coming days if the unrest continues to plague the restive state.
“The situation facing children in the country is particularly alarming, with reports suggesting that 850,000 Yemeni children face acute malnutrition,” she warned, adding that this figure “is expected to rise to 1.2 million in coming weeks if the conflict persists at its present level."
This is while Saudi Arabia still presses ahead with its military campaign against the Yemeni people.
Earlier in the day, the Saudi airstrikes claimed the lives of a woman and a child in the Harad district of the northwestern Yemeni province of Hajjah.
Saudi airborne assaults also targeted several positions in Jawf, Bayda and Ibb provinces.
Riyadh has been pounding various areas in Yemen without a UN mandate since March 26. The military aggression is meant to undermine the Ansarullah fighters of the Houthi movement and restore power to Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.
The conflict killed 4,345 people and injured 22,110 others in Yemen between March 19 and August 5, the UN says. Some 1.2 million Yemenis have also been internally displaced due to the clashes.
