Yemen: The many faces of hunger — Naglaa
A doctor shares her view of Yemen’s hunger crisis where millions are facing hunger and children are suffering most
“Every day, we are losing two to three children in this hospital. It breaks my heart as a mother, but even more as a doctor when we lose a child knowing that we could have saved his life. These children are dying from preventable causes. Only if we have the drugs, the equipment, and the right conditions, we might have saved their lives.”
“Because of the war, we are starting to see many cases of malnutrition in all its forms: mild, moderate and severe. We’re also receiving young patients with infectious diseases and epidemics like cholera, measles and diphtheria. I have cried so many times looking at these children because they could have been saved from malnutrition had they had the proper nutrition, and from diseases if they had the vaccination.”
“People are coming from areas that are very poor, with no access to proper food. We see mothers who cannot afford milk for their children, so they boil the rice and feed their babies the white water of the rice as if it was milk. It is just starchy water, void of any nutrition. We see mothers who are malnourished themselves. They do not have enough breast milk because they have had nothing to eat. It is a vicious cycle.”
