More than 100 people have been killed in a cholera outbreak, according to Yemen's health authorities. With hundreds of health facilities out of service, aid organizations have warned of a "catastrophic" situation.
Image: Picture alliance/Photoshot/M. Mohammed
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Sunday said 115 people have been killed over the past two weeks due to a "serious outbreak of cholera," citing local health authorities.
"There are up to four cholera patients in one single bed," said Dominik Stillhart, director of operations at ICRC, during a press conference in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. "There are people in the garden, and some even in their cars with the IV drip hanging from the window."
Stillhart noted that the ICRC had intervened in Sanaa by providing IV fluid, chlorine tablets and oral rehydration salts. He described the situation in Yemen as "catastrophic."
Officials in the capital declared a state of emergency on Sunday. Yemen's sanitation infrastructure has nearly collapsed after more than two years of conflict between Iran-aligned Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's internationally-recognized government.
Approximately 7.6 million people live in cholera-threatened areas, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Cholera, a waterborne bacterial infection, can be treated. However, it can kill within hours if left untreated.
Yemen: Girl recovers from malnutrition
In war-torn Yemen, 18-year-old Saida suffered from malnutrition for years. These photos document her slow recovery.
Image: Reuters/K. Abdullah
Alarming evidence of misery in Yemen
This image of 18-year-old Saida Ahmad Baghili, sitting on her bed at Al-Thawra in the Red Sea Port city of Hodeida shows her malnourished, emaciated body. It has come to stand for the worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Saida smiles - after weeks of treatment
Saida was transferred to a hospital in the capital, Sanaa. After weeks of hospital care, she can at least smile, though she can still barely speak and continues to find eating difficult at times. Her father is still worried: "She doesn't eat anything except liquid medical food. She used to drink juice and milk with bananas but now she can't. We don't know when she'll recover."
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
A lifelong condition
Doctors believe her condition has damaged her throat. When her family first brought Saida to a hospital, she could barely keep her eyes open or stand. "We admitted Saida to find out the cause of her inability to eat," her doctor said. "Her health issue remains chronic and her bones remain fragile due to stunted growth. In all likelihood, they will never return to normal."
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Finally gaining weight
Her father, Ahmed, who is staying nearby to be with his daughter, said his daughter's weight has reached 16 kilograms (35 pounds), five kilos more than when she was first admitted to hospital. He said Saida's situation was alarming before the war, which began in March 2015. Yemen's crisis including widespread hunger was brought on by decades of poverty and internal strife.
Image: Reuters/K. Abdullah
Food insecurity
About half of Yemen's 28 million people are "food insecure," according to the United Nations, and 7 million of them do not now where they will get their next meal. The US-based Famine Early Warning Systems Network, run by the US Agency for International Development, estimated that a quarter of all Yemenis are probably in a food security "emergency" - one stage before "catastrophe" or famine.
Image: Reuters/K. Abdullah
Saida out of the hospital
The war has pushed the Arab world's poorest nation to the brink of famine and displaced over three million people. Areas worst affected by the conflict are parts of Taiz province and southern coastal areas of the Hodeida province, where Saida is from.
Image: Reuters/K. Abdullah
One reason for undersupply
Restrictions imposed on the entry of ships after the start of the war in Yemen had raised insurance premiums and cut the number of vessels entering the port by more than half. About a million tons of food supplies entered through Hodeida in 2015, a third as much as in 2014.
Image: Reuters/F. Al Nassar
Yemeni women call attention to disaster
Yemeni women are holding banners depicting suffering, malnourished children. They protest against a UN roadmap for the Yemen conflict, which is calling for naming a new vice president after the withdrawal of the Houthi rebels from Sanaa. Since the beginning of the war, at least 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen.
Image: picture alliance/Yahya Arhab/E
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'Scale up assistance'
Since mid-April, more than 8,500 suspected cases of cholera have been reported to health authorities across the country. Sanaa has recorded the highest number of cases, along with its surrounding Amanat al-Semah province.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called on humanitarian organizations to increase assistance to the conflict-hit country, fearing that health authorities alone will not be able to manage the outbreak.
"MSF calls on international organizations to scale up their assistance urgently to limit the spread of the outbreak and anticipate potential other ones," the organization said in a statement.
More than 10,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced by near-daily airstrikes from Saudi-led forces since 2015. Riyadh entered the conflict in March of that year in a bid to bolster the government of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
The UN has warned of a worsening humanitarian disaster,as the fighting shows no sign of stopping in the near future. Only 45 percent of the country's 3,500 health facilities surveyed by the WHO are fully functional and accessible.
