Every 10 minutes a child dies in Yemen

Families across Yemen wake up every day to devastation, struggling to protect their children in a country marked by years of conflict and widespread poverty. Every day, more than one thousand children under age 5 die from causes like malnutrition and preventable diseases. That’s one child, every 10 minutes. Yemen’s children need life-saving food and medical treatment to survive. 

Children like Ghosson need urgent help

Ghosson was weak and in pain, suffering from severe malnutrition along with a fever and chest infection when she was admitted to a UNICEF-supported Hospital in Aden, Yemen. Doctors immediately started urgent treatment for Ghosson, trying to get her condition stable and working to help her recover her weight. It took several days before she could even leave the hospital.

Ghosson recovered and has the strength again to smile, to play, and to hope for a better future – but more than half of Yemen’s children are still fighting malnutrition. For many families living in poverty and in displacement camps across the country, every day is a struggle, requiring help to ensure basic food, water, and medical treatment for their children. You can help make a difference.

Your donation will help save lives.

ghoson

© UNICEF/UN0519198/Hayyan

Yemen’s children are fighting to survive

Half of the children in Yemen under the age of 5 are suffering from acute malnutrition, and they need urgent help. UNICEF is working on the ground to screen children, provide life-saving therapeutic food, and ensure health care and medical treatment to help children recover. With so many families facing displacement and poverty, UNICEF is also working to ensure humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable.

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Help children in Yemen with therapeutic food

Ready-to-use therapeutic food is a small sachet (92g) that costs less than $1 and can mean the difference between life and death. These sachets are packed with high-energy nutrients that children need to start to recover from malnutrition, and they can be eaten immediately so there is no risk of unsafe water or preparation. With therapeutic food, UNICEF can help to save lives, every day.

7-month-old Imetanan Taha receives therapeutic food to help her fight malnourishment.   © UNICEF/UN0456884/Abaidi
7-month-old Imetanan Taha receives therapeutic food to help her fight malnourishment. 
© UNICEF/UN0456884/Abaidi
Maram Adel Yahya is being fed with therapeutic food (RUTF) at a mobile clinic.  © UNICEF/UN0582347/UNICEF/YPN
Maram Adel Yahya is being fed with therapeutic food (RUTF) at a mobile clinic.
© UNICEF/UN0582347/UNICEF/YPN

Give today to support UNICEF in Yemen

  • Your donation will help UNICEF to continue to screen millions of children and support treatments in UNICEF-supported clinics. Our work to help save lives begins with prevention and screening, for which we have a very simple but effective tool: MUAC tapes (mid-upper arm circumference).

  • Your donation will help children can get life-saving therapeutic food before it’s too late. More than 270,000 children have been submitted to outpatient treatment programs across the country with therapeutic food to help fight malnutrition.

  • Your donation ensures that children continue to get access to life-saving health care and vaccinations to fight against preventable diseases. UNICEF supports children at over 4,400 outpatient health facilities and multiple vaccine initiatives.