Alwaght- Amid the ongoing Saudi siege against Yemeni people, the health system in the country is facing an imminent danger of breaking down.
The Save the Children Fund which is active to protect children rights on global scale said the system is on the verge of collapse as nearly eight million children depend on its service amid a growing malnutrition in the country.
The NGO delivered the warning on Tuesday in a report titled Struggling to Survive: Stories from Yemen’s Collapsing Health System, which is based on factual information and interviews with practitioners and locals.
At least 1,219 children lost their lives as a direct result of warfare in the country, the report said, adding, however, that the “invisible causalities of Yemen’s war” are much higher.
“A chronic lack of medical supplies and staff are causing an additional 10,000 preventable deaths per year,” the report said.
“An estimated 1,000 children are dying every week from preventable killers like diarrhea, malnutrition and respiratory tract infections,” Edward Santiago, the body’s Yemen country director, was cited in the report as saying.
Saudi Arabia initiated the military campaign in March 2015 to reinstall Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a dedicated Riyadh ally. Around 11,400 people have so far fallen victim to Saudi raids, according to the latest tally by a Yemeni monitoring group.
The Fund further said more than 270 health facilities had been damaged as a result of the conflict. Recent estimates suggested that more than half of 3,500 assessed health facilities had now been closed or were only functioning partially, it added.
