Iran Press/ Middle East: Drivers of malnutrition in Yemen worsened in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic, economic decline, floods, escalating conflict and significant underfunding of this year's aid response have compounded an already bleak hunger situation after almost six years of war.
"We've been warning since July that Yemen is on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis," said Lise Grande, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen.
"If the war doesn't end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing an entire generation of Yemen's young children."
According to a UN Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) malnutrition analysis of south Yemen, acute malnutrition cases in children under five increased by about 10 percent in 2020, to more than half a million.
Cases of children with severe acute malnutrition rose 15.5 percent, and at least a quarter-million pregnant or breastfeeding women also need malnutrition treatment.
About 1.4 million children under five live in south Yemen, Reuters reported.
Famine has never been officially declared in Yemen. The UN says the country is the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with 80 percent of the population reliant on humanitarian aid.
Nutrition and other services that keep millions from starvation and disease are gradually closing across Yemen amid an acute funding shortage this year.
The UN says it had by mid-October received only $1.43bn of the $3.2bn needed for the entire 2020 Yemen humanitarian response. Programs have started to close and scale down.
The organization said it needs $50m urgently to boost nutrition programs.
Saudi Arabia, with the support of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and several other countries, has launched a military invasion of Yemen since March 2015 and put it under land, sea, and air siege.
The war by Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen has so far killed more than 16,000 Yemenis, injured tens of thousands, and displaced millions of Yemenis.
The Saudi military aggression has also left the impoverished country of Yemen severely short of food and medicine.
The Saudi regime and its allies have so far failed to achieve their goals in Yemen, mainly empowering their puppets, due to the resistance of the Yemeni people.
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