3-year-old Randa starves as Yemen aid dries up

Crying and struggling to breathe, three-year-old Randa sits on a metal bed in a tent in northwest Yemen's Hajjah province, her weight similar to that of a healthy newborn.

Like millions across the war-torn country, and hundreds of children in the province, Randa is hungry.

She suffers from severe acute malnutrition, exacerbated by the desperate conditions at the Al-Khudash displacement camp she and her parents call home.

A seven-year-long civil war between pro-government forces and Huthi rebels has pushed the country to the brink of famine.

Hundreds of thousands are estimated to have died and millions have been displaced in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

It has repeatedly warned that aid agencies are running out of funds, forcing them to slash "life-saving" programmes.

The UN last year appealed for $3.85 billion to pay for urgently needed aid, but just $1.7 billion was offered at a virtual pledging conference.

Randa, who now weighs just four kilograms (under nine pounds), is among those paying the price.

"Medicine has not helped her," her mother, Saleha Nasser, told AFP.

Clinics have directed the family to a hospital in the capital Sanaa, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) southeast, "but we don't have the money to take her", Nasser said.

'NO FOOD AT ALL'

More than 2,600 families live in extreme poverty in makeshift tents -- some without roofs -- in the barren Al-Khudash camp as the conflict hampers much-needed aid deliveries.

Hundreds of children like Randa suffer from severe acute malnutrition in displacement camps in Hajjah as fighting rages, said Ali al-Ashwal, head of a local hospital.

"We sometimes receive more than 300 cases in one month, and those are just the ones that were able to make it to hospital," he told AFP.

At the facility, emaciated children lie on beds covered in purple sheets in a specially designated room. Many are crying and unable to sleep.

There are 20 beds, and all are occupied.

"Nearly two-thirds of major UN aid programmes had already scaled back or closed altogether" by the end of January, Martin Griffiths, the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council this week.

The UN's World Food Programme in December reduced food rations for eight million people, and Griffiths warned that from next month those people "may get no food at all -- or just a reduced ration".

"In March, we may also have to cancel most UN humanitarian flights in Yemen, which would cause enormous problems for the aid operation," he added.

'DEATH SENTENCE'

The years of conflict, economic collapse and the coronavirus pandemic have devastated Yemen, which was already the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country.

The UN said last year that an estimated 16.2 million people were acutely food insecure, and projected that nearly 2.3 million children under the age of five would suffer from acute malnutrition.

Some 400,000 of those children could die if they do not receive urgent humanitarian assistance, it had said.

"Looming disruptions to water and sanitation services -- again for want of funds -- could soon deprive 3.6 million people of safe drinking water, putting them, and especially children under five, at greater risk of deadly diseases," Griffiths said this week.

Battles between the warring sides have intensified in recent months, with the conflict showing no signs of abating.

The UN said that over 650 civilian casualties were reported in January, with an average of 21 people killed or wounded per day -- the highest toll in at least three years.

"The war is finding people in their homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and other places where civilians should be protected," said Griffiths.

"If these gaps (in funding) aren't addressed, it will simply be a death sentence for people whose coping mechanisms in some cases are completely exhausted and who rely on assistance for their survival," he added.