ADEN/DUBAI, May 15 (Reuters) - Cholera has killed at least 180 people in Yemen in recent weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday, a day after authorities declared a state of emergency in the capital Sanaa and called for international help. "We now are facing a serious outbreak of cholera," Director of Operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross Dominik Stillhart told a news conference in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on Sunday.Citing figures compiled by Yemen's Health Ministry, he reported that 115 people had died of cholera between April 27 and Saturday. Yemen is witnessing a devastating war between the Saudi-supported government and Iranian-backed Huthi rebels, and less than half of the country's health facilities are functioning two years into the conflict. Yemen, which is the Arab world's poorest nation, is now classified by the World Health Organization as a level three emergency, alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq. Some 17 million of Yemen's 26 million people lack sufficient food and at least three million malnourished children are in "grave peril", the U.N. has also said.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, a cholera outbreak has since April 27 killed at least 115 people and left another 8,500 ill across Yemen.