“Save the Children”: 85,000 children ‘dead from malnutrition’ in Yemen

An estimated 85,000 children under the age of five may have died from acute malnutrition in three years of war in Yemen, a leading charity said.

The number is equivalent to the entire under-five population in the UK’s second largest city of Birmingham, “Save the Children” added.

The UN warned last month that up to 14m Yemenis are on the brink of famine.

It is trying to revive talks to end a three-year war which has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Yemen has been devastated by the conflict. Fighting escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign against the Houthi rebel movement which had forced President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to flee abroad.

At least 6,800 civilians have been killed and 10,700 injured in the war, according to the UN. The fighting and a partial blockade by the coalition have also left 22 million people in need of humanitarian aid, created the world’s largest food security emergency, and led to a cholera outbreak that has affected 1.2 million people.