The UN children's agency (UNICEF) said Tuesday that millions of children in Yemen are facing the threat of malnutrition and preventable diseases such as measles, pneumonia, and diarrhea. According to UNICEF, since fighting intensified in March, many hospitals and health centers have been unable to function properly and vaccination services have been disrupted. Since the escalation, UNICEF said, the death toll has soared. At least 279 children have been killed and 402 injured since late March – four times the number reported in all of 2014. "Around 280 children have been killed directly in the conflict – that is very tragic in its own right," UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Peter Salama told Reuters. "But what is even more tragic is that hundreds of thousands more children might die if the conflict continues, and they will be largely due to preventable infectious diseases combined with malnutrition." UNICEF said that the interruption of vaccination services leaves 2.6 million children under 15 at risk of measles, roughly 2.5 million children at risk from diarrhea, and more than half a million children under five at risk of developing sever and acute malnutrition in the next year. The U.N. agency has set up mobile health and nutrition teams and localized vaccination campaigns in the worst-affected areas of the country.
