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William Lambers Published:08-08-2011
Yemen is living in peril with dangerous political instability, and violence in the south between the government and suspected Al-Qaeda militants.
But for a newborn child in Yemen, the greatest danger lies in lack of nutrition, for their future hinges on whether they can receive it.
The first 1000 days of life are the critical window for children. If they do not receive the right foods, they can suffer lasting physical and mental damage. If this irreversible damage occurs, it will mean stunted growth, increased health problems, and an inability to learn. If you have this occurring in a country, you cannot progress.
There are 450,000 children under five suffering from acute malnutrition and another 360,000 suffering from moderate acute malnutrition. These are different levels of the basic threat of malnutrition.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reports: “Half of Yemen’s children are chronically malnourished and 1 out of 10 does not live to reach the age of five. Such emergency levels of chronic malnutrition - or stunting - are second globally only to Afghanistan, the proportion of underweight children is the third highest in the world after India and Bangladesh.”
Enter Plumpy’nut. This is a special peanut paste that if given to children can rescue them from the potentially deadly malnutrition. It is desperately needed in Yemen. But not enough funding is provided to aid agencies for this to happen. Child hunger issues are often the victims of policy planning by the international community. Not enough emphasis is given.
Dr. Wisam Al-timimi of UNICEF says: “We are planning to reach 36,000 severely acute malnourished children” at a cost of US$ 4.6 million. But there are 90,000 such cases of severely malnourished children in the country. More funding and resources would be needed to reach all of them. These are the most severe cases. Many other children are suffering from malnutrition.”If these Yemeni infants do not get proper nutrition, they suffer lasting physical and mental damage. They are scarred for life.
Tragically, this is often the case in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East.
This week Hedinn Halldorsson of UNICEF profiles one of the physicians on the front line of the struggle to save Yemen’s children. Dr. Rajia Sharhan is UNICEF’s nutrition officer running therapeutic feeding centres. Families are so poor in Yemen, they are even forced to do the unthinkable.
Dr. Sharhan says, “For poor families, letting a child die is, sadly, one of the options they sometimes resort to.” Sharhan also explains how crucial it is for Yemen’s physicians to be properly trained to treat malnutrition.
Halldorsson writes, “At the therapeutic feeding centre at a large hospital in the capital, Sana’a, the mothers and grandmothers of six young patients all tell the same story. They say recent months have been particularly difficult due to Yemen’s political conflict, that they have no source of income or food.” An impoverished country like Yemen is not well-suited to absorb this prolonged political strife.
Dr. Sharhan says, “I often feel that I am in a vicious cycle. We treat one child and then watch new ones being brought in.” This is the struggle facing Yemen that often misses the headlines and news bytes. But children suffering is unacceptable and we have to do something about it.
The international community can help. The rehabilitation of malnourished children is a top priority in order to save a generation of youth. The future of Yemen is impacted by the rampant malnutrition and poverty in the population. In my previous article I mentioned how plumpy’nut supplies for all children in Yemen could make a huge difference. It would not even cost that much for the international community to come through.
There was once a time when one could buy a CARE package and send it to a country where children were suffering so much. I think people would like to do that today with Yemen. Maybe it’s this kind of initiative that would move the government leaders to follow.
This is an area where we can actually help Yemen relatively quickly. We have UNICEF, the World Food Programme, Save the Children, and others on the ground ready to work with Yemen and solve this crisis. They just need the support of the international community. All it takes is for a few in power to decide to take action to save the children and save Yemen.