Oxfam: 1 Yemeni dies of cholera every hour

Oxfam International yesterday warned that the cholera epidemic in Yemen is killing one person almost every hour.

“Yemen is in the grip of the rapidly spreading cholera epidemic, which kills almost one person every hour,” the organisation said in a report published on its website.

“If the cholera epidemic is not contained, it will threaten the lives of thousands of people in the coming months,” the report said.

#YemenCrisis

The organisation called for substantial aid efforts and an immediate ceasefire to allow health workers and relief workers to deal with the outbreak.

In the coming months, the number of cases of cholera in Yemen could reach 150,000, with estimates of up to 300,000.

“The cholera outbreak came two years after the brutal war, which destroyed health, water and sanitation systems, severely restricted the country’s main imports and left millions of people a step away from starvation,” it added.

Read: Cholera threatens 1.1m pregnant women in Yemen, warns UN

“Yemen is on the verge of abyss,” the report quoted Sajjad Mohammed Sajid, Oxfam country director, saying, adding that the war has created “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world”.

“Yemen is now at the mercy of a widespread and deadly cholera epidemic,” he said, noting that the epidemic is simple to treat, but the continued fighting makes it difficult to fight it.

The outbreak will be one of the worst events of this century, unless huge and immediate efforts are made to control it

the report warned.

International organisations and global powers were called on to honour pledges of $1.2 billion in aid at the Humanitarian Aid Conference on Yemen held in Geneva at the end of April.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday that the number of deaths from the cholera epidemic in Yemen reached 746, with more than 96,000 suspected cases registered since 27 April.