HARADH, 16 November 2009 (IRIN): Aid workers at al-Mazraq camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate, northernYemen, say more and more children are arriving at the camp in a state of moderate or severe malnourishment.
During our tent visits, we found that an average family has a severely or moderately malnourished child, said Sarah Yahya, a volunteer working with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on identifying malnourished children.
Khalid Shaibani from the UNICEF-run therapeutic feeding centre (TFC) at the camp told IRIN the number of malnourished children was increasing by the day as new IDP families arrived.
– Two babies died from malnutrition complications just a few days after their families secured shelter in the camp. Another 10 were referred to a hospital in Haradh town, 40 km west of the camp, he said.
Of the 3.000 under fives targeted by a recent screening in the camp, 667 cases (22 per cent) were severely malnourished and 200 (6,67 percent) moderately malnourished, according to Shaibani.
In September UNICEF screened about 1.200 under-five IDP children in the camp and found 7 per cent severely malnourished.
– Faris’s arms and legs are getting thinner and thinner by the day. No food remains in his stomach for more than 10 minutes due to very bad diarrhoea and vomiting. He hardly stands up or sits down and spends most of the time lying on his back,” said the father of the four-year-old boy.
Mahdi, his wife and their six children fled their home in the Dhafir District, Saada Governorate, to the Saudi border in mid-August because of fighting between government troops and Houthi-led insurgents. Whilst taking refuge there, they had very limited access to food, Mahdi’s wife, Khudhra, told IRIN.
After a Saudi army operation against Houthi insurgents in the border area in early November, the family was forced, along with hundreds of others, to flee again.
