Heartbreaking photos of malnourished kids reveal suffering of seven million starving in Yemen’s ‘forgotten war’

HEARTBREAKING pictures of emaciated toddlers reveal the suffering of some of the seven million people starving to death in Yemen's "forgotten war".

The tiny boys and girls are too weak to cry, their bulging eyes symptoms of severe malnutrition after years of fighting devastated the already poverty-stricken country.

They were pictured at the Swedish hospital in Taiz, one of the few remaining clinics in the war-ravaged city.

The population has been exposed to shelling and aerial bombing and now they are also threatened by famine and disease due to a shortage of medicines and food.

The photos from Taiz emerged as aid agencies met at the United Nations in Geneva to discuss the humanitarian emergency in Yemen.

Across the nation of 26 million people, seven million need immediate food aid and three-quarters have no access to safe water or sanitation.

Unicef and the World Food Program have warned that half a million Yemeni children are at risk of death unless they receive immediate care and specialised treatment

So far the UN has raised only £8.5 billion of a £16.3 billion appeal for funds.

António Guterres, the new UN secretary-general, said a child under five died from a preventable cause every ten minutes in Yemen

He said: "We are witnessing the starving and the crippling of an entire generation. We must act now to save lives."

Unicef's Geert Cappelaere said: "In simple terms, the situation in Yemen is catastrophic.

"There is no single country in the world where, today, children are suffering more than in Yemen."

More than 10,000 civilians have been killed in the last two years - most of them in air strikes - in what has been described as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Millions more Yemenis have been forced to flee their homes or are besieged by warring militias, who in some areas have been accused of blocking aid from reaching starving civilians.

In other areas there is food available but prices have rocketed while incomes have collapsed almost to nothing.

Almost 19 million people are now said to be in need of international assistance, but aid groups cannot get access to those most in need.

Aid agencies blamed much of the suffering on the Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states, whose jets have rained down thousands of bombs in support of the UN-recognised government of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

The president was driven out of the capital Sanaa by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in early 2015. Other tribal militias and terror groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda have also sought to gain territory amid the chaos.

But unlike the civil war in Syria war, Yemen's conflict has not led to a flood of refugees to the West — nor as much coverage in the news.

Stephen O'Brien, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, described Yemen as the world's gravest humanitarian crisis.

And David Beasley, head of the UN World Food Programme, said: "Across Yemen, hunger and malnutrition have reached unprecedented levels and the threat of famine looms large. The country is on the brink of catastrophe."

In October US-made bombs were said to have been used in a Saudi strike that killed 140 at a funeral in Sanaa.

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