AL HARF, Yemen — The mother’s first challenge when her spindly 8-month-old son came down with a fever, diarrhea and vomiting was to get from their poor, isolated village in northern Yemen to the nearest clinic. After three days of failing to find a ride, she set out on foot, carrying her sick child for two hours to reach the medics who immediately recognized yet another case in Yemen’s spiraling crisis of acute malnutrition. Even after a week of treatment with enriched formula, the boy, Sharaf Shaitah, lay motionless on a hospital bed, his bones peeking through the skin of his twiggy limbs. Asked if her family had enough to eat, his mother, Iman Murshid, replied, “Sometimes we have enough, sometimes we don’t.”Six years into a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, shattered the country and battered much of its infrastructure, Yemen faces rising rates of hunger that have created pockets of famine that aid groups warn are likely to grow, leaving even more malnourished Yemenis vulnerable to disease and starvation.

Source: International New York Times March 31, 2021 16:35 UTC