Srinagar: Yemen is facing ‘world’s worst cholera outbreak’, while ‘starvation’ looms large over almost 25 million people said Stephen O’Brien, the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs.
“Today, millions of people in Yemen are facing a triple tragedy: the spectre of famine, the world’s largest ever single-year cholera outbreak, and the daily deprivation and injustice of a brutal conflict that the world is allowing to drag on and on,” O’Brien, was reported to have said.
Media reports quoted O’Brien calling for an unconditional humanitarian access to country and while asking for airport in the capital Sanaa to be opened “immediately”.
Houthi rebels who are in control of the airport and large parts of the country are expexted to reject Yemen’s foreign minister Abdul Malik al-Mekhlafi’s demand that they should let government take control of the Airport.
Reports also quoted Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the UN special envoy to Yemen calling upon international community for a political solution to the more than two-year-old conflict resulting in death of at least 10,000 Yemenis while the number of injured is 44,000.
“Those who survived cholera will continue to suffer the consequences of ‘political cholera’ that infects Yemen and continues to obstruct the road towards peace,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed was quoted by media reports of having said.
According to a report in Aljazeera, in Yemen almost 2,000 people have lost life from cholera since April while above half a million people remain infected. 600,000 more are expected to get infected this year.
