Letters to the Editor: Diplomacy needed to avert disaster in Yemen

Smoke rises after Saudi-led airstrikes on an army base in Sanaa, Yemen. Picture: AP Photo/Hani Mohammed

People in Yemen are starving to death; they are dying in hospitals, homes, and on the roadsides while fleeing to safety.

Many severely undernourished children who make it to the safety of the overcrowded Hodeidah Hospital on the Red Sea coast still die as their bodies are so weakened with starvation. According to the director of the UN World Food Programme 400,000 Yemini children are at risk of dying and 11m children need aid in the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The UN estimates that 50% of healthcare facilities have shut down in a conflict that has displaced more than 3.6m people, over 80% of which are women and children. The coronavirus pandemic runs rampant among such dysfunctionality.