UNICEF: 66,000 Yemen children die annually from preventable diseases

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said yesterday that as many as 66,000 Yemeni children under the age of five die every year from preventable diseases.

UNICEF resident representative in Yemen, Meritxell Relano, said on Twitter that half of these children die during childbirth or in the first month of life, while others die from preventable diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition.

In addition every year in #Yemen 66,000 children under 5 years of age are dying of preventable diseases. Half of them during birth or in the first month of life and the others of diseases that are preventable such as diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition related causes.

— Meritxell Relaño (@RelanoMeritxell) August 15, 2018

She added that children in Yemen continue to be killed in several provinces, stressing on the need to end the war.

Read: Yemen buries children killed by air strike, Riyadh insists raid ‘legitimate’

Impoverished Yemen has remained in a state of civil war since 2014, when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sana’a.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled government.

According to UN officials, more than 10,000 people have been killed in the war, while more than 11 per cent of the country’s population has been displaced.