Saturday, October 14, 2017

No halt to the tragedy in Yemen

The Great Powers are focused on resolving crises in Syria and Iraq and the conflict in Yemen is not receiving much attention. The war-ravaged country will have a million cholera cases by the end of year. The country is being torn apart by a protracted civil war.

Over 10,000 people have been killed, tens of thousands more wounded and injured, and more than three million displaced since the start of the conflict. Over 80 percent of Yemen's population is in urgent need of aid, and millions of people have problems accessing water, according to the United Nations.

Save the Children warned that Yemen's cholera outbreak could reach more than a million cases, including at least 600,000 children, by the turn of yearHealth organizations say about 4,000 suspected cases of cholera are being reported in Yemen every day. "Wwe've never seen an outbreak of this scale or speed. It's what you get when a country is brought to its knees by conflict, when a healthcare system is on the brink of collapse, when its children are starving, and when its people are blocked from getting the medical treatment they need," said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children's Country Director for Yemen. "There's no doubt this is a man-made crisis. Cholera only rears its head when there's a complete and total breakdown in sanitation. All parties to the conflict must take responsibility for the health emergency we find ourselves in," Kirolos added.

Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman recently accused the international community of ignoring the plight of the Yemeni people suffering from hunger and disease. "The world doesn't pay enough attention to Yemen. It is the forgotten land. There's a lot of suffering in our country. There's a big famine and cholera there."

The SOYMB blog makes no apologies for frequently posting about this war and reminding people of the suffering and misery that is going on

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