The heads of UN aid organizations issued a joint statement yesterday warning of the devastation being wrought on children in Yemen by the famine conditions in the country. About 400,000 children under the age of five are in danger of dying of acute malnutrition in war-torn and impoverished Yemen, they warned, reported {Al Monitor}. They said half of those in the most vulnerable age bracket, or 2.3 million small children, are projected to suffer from severe malnutrition this year. “These numbers are yet another cry for help from Yemen where each malnourished child also means a family struggling to survive,” World Food Programm chief David Beasley said in a joint statement.

“More children will die with every day that passes without action”, said Henrietta Fore, head of the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF. “Humanitarian organizations need urgent predictable resources and unhindered access to communities on the ground to be able to save lives.”

The UN agencies also warned that about 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women are also expected to suffer from extreme malnutrition in 2021. “The crisis in Yemen is a toxic mix of conflict, economic collapse and a severe shortage of funding to provide the life-saving help that’s desperately needed,” said Beasley. “But there is a solution to hunger, and that’s food and an end to the violence.”