The announcement by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis at the Pentagon came on the heels of a statement by the aid agency Save the Children on Wednesday that underscored the harrowing nature of the conflict: An estimated 85,000 children might have died of hunger since the bombings began in 2015. Through new analysis of UN data, the charity found that between April 2015 and October 2018, about 84,701 children under 5 died from untreated cases of severe acute malnutrition — or in simple terms, hunger. Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children’s Yemen director, says: “For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death and it’s entirely preventable,” adding that “children who die in this way suffer immensely.”

The war and a Saudi-led blockade have created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 8 million people at risk of starvation. “Children who die in this way suffer immensely as their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop… Parents are having to witness their children wasting away, unable to do anything about it.”

Since the Saudi-Emirati military intervention in March 2015 in Yemen, commercial imports of food through the vital Hodeidah port have been reduced by more than 55,000 tonnes a month, enough to meet the needs of 4.4 million people, including 2.2 million children, the group said. These grim figures, detailing the horrors of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, come as intense fighting has again erupted in Yemen’s strategic port city of Hodeidah — a vital entry point for UN and other humanitarian aid and the center of the conflict between the US-backed Saudi-led coalition and the Iranian-aligned Houthis.
A report by charity Save the Children estimates that 85,000 children died of starvation as a result of the war.