Yemen’s unseen economic war is killing children by stealth

By: Kevin Watkins
At the crowded nutrition clinic at the Salkhana hospital in Hodeidah, one of the largest cities in Yemen, about 30 anxious mothers await their patience with their children’s weight and weight.
The first thing you notice about Aisha *, who is seven months old, is her legs with shiny legs and bulging abdomen. Weighs only 3.5 kg – the average weight of a new baby in the UK. When the doctor measures the circumference of her arm, the tape enters the red area, indicating serious malnutrition.
This is not the first brush for Aisha with famine. Two months ago, she spent five days at the hospital’s emergency stabilization center for severely malnourished children. Her life was saved – only. She has now returned to Save the Children’s Emergency Nutrition Program with two of her sisters, two and three years old. “I do not have money to feed them or buy medicines.” “What can I do?” Her mother asks me.
Sometimes the war in Yemen kills very clearly. More than 5,000 children have lost their lives or been injured by military action since 2015. Some were bomb victims, some of which were manufactured in the UK, which hit schools, homes and public places. Others were caught in the indiscriminate exchange of fire through a panorama of the front lines that determine the war in Yemen. The Houthi war, which controls the capital Sanaa, is being waged against groups backed by the Saudi-led alliance of nations.
Not just bombs, bullets and artillery shells that threaten Yemen’s children. This is a conflict that is also killed by the ghost. The Saudi-led coalition uses economic strangulation as a weapon of war, targeting jobs, infrastructure, food markets and basic services. There is no one to calculate the bodies of the victims. But for every child buried under the rubble of a building struck by a “smart bomb,” dozens of children – like Aisha – are threatened with the hunger of economic assault.
The United Nations called Yemen “the worst humanitarian disaster in the world”. Nearly two-thirds of the population needs emergency support. The diet breaks down, pushing the country to the brink of famine. More than 400,000 children are at risk of imminent famine death. Unlike Aisha, most of them will not see a health clinic or receive treatment. Many of those who survive will be affected by stunting and poor health for the rest of their lives.
Economic collapse was the catalyst for the economic crisis. War actions, economic infrastructure and basic services were systematically targeted. Coalition coalition raids targeted warehouses, factories and transport infrastructure. The economic assault has put millions of Yemenis in a vicious cycle of rising food, fuel, unemployment and low wages.
The road from Sanaa to the port of Hodeidah, one of the main arteries in Yemen, bears the effects of the economic war. Last week, I counted three bridges destroyed by Saudi air strikes. The port itself is a ghost town. Saudi bombs destroyed the five cranes that unloaded ships carrying 80 percent of Yemen’s imports along with grain storage silos. More than 20,000 people lost their jobs. One of them is Aisha’s father, which is why a family with five children now lives on less than $ 3 (£ 2) a day.
The economic meltdown has exacerbated the collapse of the banking system. In 2016, Saudi authorities transferred the central bank from Sanaa to the southern city of Aden, which is controlled by its allies. This move led to the withdrawal of public funding in the northern governorates under Houthi’s control, leaving more than 1.5 million health workers, teachers and water and sanitation workers without pay. Schools, hospitals and other basic services without budgets.
You can see results at the General Hospital in Imran. This is the main referral hospital, which serves more than a million people. It has no antibiotics, no anesthesia, no drugs to treat obstetric deliveries. The hospital covers its costs by shipping patients who have to buy their own drugs from private service providers. Try imagining the nearest UK teaching hospital without medication that you can prescribe by any GP.
Kevin Watkins is CEO of Save the Children UK. Previously he was Executive Director of the Overseas Development Institute.