50,000 Yemeni children will die by end of the year, says Save the Children

Disease and famine struck Yemen will see some 50,000 Yemeni children dead by the end of the year, NGO Save the Children told the Telegraph.

“These deaths are as senseless as they are preventable. They mean more than a hundred mothers grieving for the death of a child, day after day,” Tamer Kirolos, director at Save the Children, said.

Some 40,000 children are estimated to have already died from malnutrition.

The calculations were predicted before the Saudi-led coalition closed air, land and sea ports in Yemen restricting imports to the country. This was in response to a missile executed by the Iranian-backed Houthi armed group towards Riyadh airport early this month.

The ports in southern Yemen have since been re-opened, but Sana’a airport and the strategic port of Hudaydah are still closed.

Some 700,000 suspected cases of cholera have been reported in Yemen. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced in early November that it is closing most of its cholera clinics in Yemen.

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