Saudi coalition siege kills 16% of Yemen's premature babies - reports
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Eight years into the brutal war, aggression, and blockade on Yemen, the Sanaa government says that half of the country's premature children are doomed to death.
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Approximately 16% of all prematurely born babies in Yemen are doomed to die due to the Saudi-led coalition of aggression's unjust war and blockade, which are preventing vital medicines from making it into the country.
Sanaa government Health Minister Taha Moutawakel said the coalition's raids have killed and wounded more than 16,000 women and children.
"According to our statistics, 80 newborn babies die every day due to the lack of medical equipment and medicines as a result of the repercussions of the blockade on the Yemeni people," Moutawakel said.
The minister underlined that Yemen needs around 2,000 incubators when it only has around 600. Meanwhile, a key Yemeni hospital said that the Saudi-led coalition and its blockade raised the number of deaths in incubators to 2,227 out of a total of 12,200 babies born since 2016.
Highest infant mortality rate in ME
United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)'s representative in Yemen said the country had the highest infant mortality rate in the Middle East as Yemen goes into its eighth year of Saudi-led aggression.
"UN statistics in Yemen found that 60 babies out of 1,000 premature births die" in Yemen, the representative said, noting that 52,000 babies die annually, meaning that one child dies every 10 minutes.
He also explained that according to UN statistics, 6 newborn children die in Yemen every two hours, noting that "half of the children who die under the age of 5 are newborns."
The "Intisaf" organization for women's and children's rights in Sanaa reported that some 14,500 women and children have been killed in Yemen since the start of the war on Yemen.
The United Nations constantly warns of the bad situation in Yemen. In its latest report, the organization showed that the number of child victims of the war on Yemen has risen to 11,000.
The Saudi coalition's war on Yemen has reflected on the country's health sector, with international organizations estimating that only half of the health facilities are working, which in turn suffer from a severe shortage of medicine, equipment, and medical staff.
As of December 2021, the war has claimed the lives of 377,000 people and caused cumulative losses to the Yemeni economy estimated at $126 billion. It has also plunged about 80% of Yemenis into various crises, rendering them in need of humanitarian aid.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) affirmed earlier in the month that the majority of the Yemeni people urgently need humanitarian aid, as a result of the conflict that has been going on in the Arab country for 8 years.
Through its Twitter account, the committee said that over 70% of people in Yemen today are in need of humanitarian aid, adding that "only 51% of health facilities are functioning" in Yemen, and "over 4.7 million women and children are acutely malnourished."
Read next: Red cross official urges the world not to forget Yemen, other war-torn nations
Meanwhile, as the medical sector is overwhelmed, the director of the Munabbih Hospital, Ali al-Ayashi, said earlier in the day that the hospital received 169 dead and 1,833 wounded, including African migrants, this year alone.
He pointed out that the Saudi-led coalition continues to commit crimes against Yemenis and migrants. The director also noted that due to the severity of many of the cases that arrive at the hospital's emergency room, many are given emergency treatment to allow for their transfer to other, better-equipped hospitals across the governorate.
He explained that the cases arriving at Munabih Hospital varied "from injury from mortar and machine gun shrapnel, electric shock, to acid torture."
According to SABA, Al-Ayashi touched on "a side of the brutal methods of torture practiced by the Saudi enemy against Yemeni citizens and African migrants, which are contrary to all international humanitarian norms, charters and laws, taking advantage of the complicity of organizations and the international community alongside them."
Yemen has been witnessing violent battles for about 8 years, due to the Saudi coalition's aggression against the country. The humanitarian situation remains difficult due to the ongoing blockade of ports imposed by the Saudi coalition forces, which limits the availability of fuel, food, and medicine.
