Hope And Hopelessness In The Hunger Wards Of Yemen



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A nurse checks a child who is receiving treatment for malnutrition at a hospital in Sana’a, Yemen. The photo was taken on December 13.

Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images




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Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images

The circumference of an 18-month-old girl’s arm is measured at nearly 4 inches, indicating severe acute malnutrition, at an International Medical Corps’ outpatient nutrition clinic in Al Mukha, Taiz governate, Yemen. The measuring device is called a MUAC tape (middle upper arm circumference).

Saddam Saaed


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Saddam Saaed

At the health center in Sana’a, Dr. Abdelmalek Mohammed measures and weighs children during visiting hours. He tells NPR he believes that one-year-old Abdullah, with an arm measurement of 3.2 inches, will survive. The doctor says a few beds away is a severe case that he thinks will also survive, 16-month-old Zayed Ali. After a month of treatment, Zayed weighs the same as Abdullah, 6 pounds, with an arm circumference that measures 2.8 inches, roughly the size of a wine cork.

The doctor has seen an influx of families traveling from distant rural areas of the country seeking medical care for their children in the capital. He says it’s a significant indication to him that malnutrition has worsened.

Even if a child like 1-year-old Abdullah survives and is discharged from the feeding center, his parents will still have to continue his feeding treatment at home, says Mbuto, and if there is a lack of food at home, it is likely the child will relapse.

The U.N. predicts the situation in Yemen will worsen. It projects a famine in the next six months with well over half the country malnourished.

«Yemen is now in imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen for decades,» warned António Guterres, secretary-general of the U.N., in a statement last month. «In the absence of immediate action, millions of lives may be lost.»

«The famine already exists,» says Dr. Abdelmalek Mohammed, who sees only a couple of beds free in the feeding ward where he works — for now. «It has gotten worse to the point it has become out of control.»

  • severe malnutrition
  • conflict
  • famine
  • Yemen



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