Yemenis Forced to Choose Between Treating Sick Children or Feeding Healthy Ones: UNICEF

Russia Today cited Sherin Varkey, UNICEF's deputy representative to Yemen, as saying that Yemeni families are making "life and death choices" such as deciding whether to invest in treating a sick child or feeding their healthy children.
 
"The situation is getting worse and time is running out for the children in Yemen," Varkey said.
 
"We have seen many tragedies like Jamila's every day. We know currently almost 7 million Yemenis are facing severe food insecurity, which means they don't know where their next meal will come from," He said referring to the tragedy of the death of seven-year-old Jamila Ali Abdu, who died of malnutrition after suffering from worms for two years.
 
"Every time we went to a hospital they told us she had worms and bacteria. We couldn’t get anywhere and we are poor people and can't go to Sanaa or anywhere else," Jamila's father, Ali Abdu, told AP.
 
Heartbreaking footage showed the skeletal Jamila's final moments in a hospital bed, with her father at her side.
 
 “She was very sick and I tried to get her treated at the hospitals and nothing helped, and as soon as we had any amount of money I would spend it to get her treatment. We sold the furniture and we sold the sheep and everything else. I wanted a healthy life for Jamila but we weren't able to obtain it,” said Amal Ibrahim, Jamila's grieving mother.
 
Dr. Awsan al-Aariqi, who was part of the team attempting to treat Jamila, said medical personnel did everything they could.
 
 “The main cause of malnutrition for this child is that she's been suffering from diarrhea for about two or three years, without any sort of diagnosis...we started treating her according to the protocol for treating malnourished children, but for this child, unfortunately, there was no response to the treatment,” he said.
 
Jamila's story is far from unique, however. In fact, at least one child dies every 10 minutes due to preventable diseases such as diarrhea, malnutrition, and respiratory tract infections, according to the agency.
 
Saudi Arabia launched brutal aggression against its southern neighbor on 27 March 2015 in a bid to restore power to Yemen's resigned president who fled to Riyadh after Yemeni people's uprising in 2015.
 
Over 12,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians including women and children, have been killed during the ongoing Saudi-led aggression on Yemen. The military aggression has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, mosques and factories.
 
Children are paying an extremely high price as Saudis military aggression is accompanied by an all-out blockade on the poorest Arab nation, with 90 percent in desperate need of humanitarian care, according to UNICEF. Almost half a million are at risk of starvation.
 
"We have seen many tragedies like Jamila's every day. We know currently almost 7 million Yemenis are facing severe food insecurity, which means they don't know where their next meal will come from," Sherin Varkey, UNICEF's deputy representative to Yemen, told RT.
 
 Saudi military aggression has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, mosques and factories.