GENEVA / YEMEN STARVATION

Millions of people in Yemen are starving, including children, the UN has warned as new photographs from areas worst hit by the war show teenagers dying of hunger. UNTV CH / FILE

• Video Length: 00:02:42
• Production Date: 28 October 2016
• Asset Language: English
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF; WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME - WFP; WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION - WHO
• Subject Topical: CHILDREN IN ARMED CONFLICTS; HEALTH SERVICES; MALNUTRITION
• Geographic Subject: YEMEN
• MAMS Id: 1758795
• Parent Id: 1758795
• Alternate Title: unifeed161028d

Description

STORY: GENEVA / YEMEN STARVATION
TRT: 2:42
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 28 OCTOBER 2016 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, Exterior Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Christophe Boulierac, Spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “Nearly 10,000 deaths of children under five years old may have occurred due to declining health care, this crumbling health system. 600 health facilities have stopped working and a fifth of all vaccination centres and district vaccines stores remain closed.”
4. Close up, journalist
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Christophe Boulierac, Spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “As you know there are many children who are dying not only from bombing and bullets but also from the diseases that we have mentioned very frequently, diarrhea, pneumonia.”
6. Wide shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Tarik Jasarevic, Spokesperson for the World Health Organisation (WHO):
“It is estimated that there are 1.5 million children that are acutely malnourished and 370,000 that are severely malnourished in Yemen. WHO is helping health authorities together with other partners and is supporting right now 12 therapeutic feeding centres in different areas of the country, including Sa'ana, Lahj, Aden and Hadramout governorates.”
8. Close up, journalist
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Tarik Jasarevic, Spokesperson for the World Health Organisation (WHO):
“On October 6th, the Ministry of Health has declared an outbreak of cholera, the latest figures I got this morning is that the number of cases is increasing and that there are as of 27 October 1, 410 suspected cholera cases in 10 out of Yemen’s 23 governorates, mostly in Taiz, Aden, Lahj, Al-Hudaydah and Sanaa.”
10. Close up, journalist
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Bettina Lüscher, Spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP):
“The World Food Programme is of course on the ground, we are helping some 3 million people every month – in recent months we have split the rations in half, so that we could reach 6 million people with smaller food rations, just to reach more people. It is really a dire situation on the ground, we urgently need money - that is one of the tragic things also when it comes to Yemen. WFP needs 257 million to do food assistance until March next year”.

FILE – WFP - 22-23 OCTOBER 2016, HAJJAH, YEMEN

12. Wide shot, hospital entrance
13. Med shot, mother sitting by malnourished daughter
14. Close up, malnourished child
15. Close up, child being checked for malnutrition
16. Wide shot, Doctor checking child

Storyline

Millions of people in Yemen are starving, including children, the UN has warned as new photographs from areas worst hit by the war show teenagers dying of hunger.

Christophe Boulierac, Spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told media today (28 Oct) in Geneva that “nearly 10,000 deaths of children under five years old may have occurred due to declining health care, this crumbling health system. 600 health facilities have stopped working and a fifth of all vaccination centres and district vaccines stores remain closed.”

According to UNICEF, 7.4 million children are in need of health care and 370,000 children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition.

Boulierac added that “as you know there are many children who are dying not only from bombing and bullets but also from the diseases that we have mentioned very frequently, diarrhoea, pneumonia.”

Yemen now has one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

WFP spokesperson Bettina Lüscher said to reporters that “the World Food Programme is of course on the ground, we are helping some 3 million people every month.”

She said that “in recent months we have split the rations in half, so that we could reach 6 million people with smaller food rations, just to reach more people. It is really a dire situation on the ground, we urgently need money - that is one of the tragic things also when it comes to Yemen. WFP needs 257 million to do food assistance until March next year.”

After almost 19 months of ongoing conflict in Yemen, shortages of food, medicine and other basic commodities are placing millions more people on the brink of starvation, says WHO.

WHO’s spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said that “it is estimated that there are 1.5 million children that are acutely malnourished and 370,000 that are severely malnourished in Yemen. WHO is helping health authorities together with other partners and is supporting right now 12 therapeutic feeding centers in different areas of the country, including Sa'ana, Lahj, Aden and Hadramout governorates.”

Adding to the severe malnutrition in Yemen is a cholera outbreak, declared by Yemen’s Ministry of health on 6 October 2016.

Jasarevic said that “the latest figures I got this morning is that the number of cases is increasing and that there are as of 27 October 1, 410 suspected cholera cases in 10 out of Yemen’s 23 governorates, mostly in Taiz, Aden, Lahj, Al-Hudaydah and Sanaa.”