Malnutrition: a constant threat for children in Yemen

30-year-old Abdulrahman Moamen works at a health center in Sharas district, Hajjah Governorate, in northwestern Yemen. He goes out every morning to work at the center and provide health services to children.

Mothers and their children come to this center to receive health services such as therapeutic nutrition for the malnourished, immunization, reproductive health, and maternal and reproductive health services.

Most children who come to the health center suffer from diseases such as respiratory infections, diarrhea, malaria, or malnutrition at different stages ranging from moderate to severe.

Malnutrition in the family

With his wife and four children, Abdulrahman lives in a house located in an area surrounded by pollution due to the absence of an adequate sanitation system. The sewage of the whole area collects at a spot nearby his house. Such an environment can cause malaria and diarrhea, both of which can lead to malnutrition among children.  

When she was just over one year old, Rowaida, Abdulrahman’s youngest child, was infected with malaria. Abdulrahman noticed that his daughter was getting thinner, so he took her to the health center. Rowaida was one year and five months at the time. She was diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition as her weight and height were nearly 30% less than normal.  

“I felt really bad when my daughter was diagnosed with malnutrition. I thought that because I was a doctor, I could treat her myself”, Abdulrahman says. “However, this is not the case for [the majority of] malnourished children in Yemen,” he adds, aware that his family somehow is more fortunate than most.

For four months, Rowaida was fed with ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) to help her gain weight and grow well. At the end of the treatment, she had gained 1.5 kilograms and was discharged from the programme.

In response to the child malnutrition crisis in Yemen, UNICEF supports primary healthcare centers, such as the health center in Sharas, where Abdulrahman works. This health center is one of more than 4,400 UNICEF-supported health facilities providing outpatient therapeutic treatment programmes (OTP). In addition, UNICEF supports 134 therapeutic feeding centers (TFCs) to provide lifesaving treatment for children with severe acute malnutrition and other complications.

For more than two years, Rowaida was healthy, until she caught diarrhea in June 2021, one month after her fourth birthday.

She was taken to the health center in Sharas and received treatment and medication. Then she was moved to a hospital in the city centre of Hajjah to receive specialized care. . When she was discharged from the hospital, she was taken back to her village, where she was admitted to the UNICEF-supported outpatient therapeutic programme (OTP) for observation and follow-up.

Her body measurements showed that she had severe acute malnutrition as a result of the weight loss caused by diarrhea. She was admitted to the OTP where she was given RUTF to gain weight. She gained 700 grams over the last two months since her admission in the therapeutic programme. Today, her condition has improved, and she is being treated for moderate acute malnutrition. She still needs to gain 3 kilograms to be in within the normal measures for a baby girl of her age.

Abdulrahman has great dreams for Rowaida: “I wish my daughter Rowaida could become a doctor in the future to help other children in Yemen stay healthy,” he says.

Like Rowaida, children in Yemen are vulnerable to malnutrition due to various reasons exacerbated by the conflict. Currently, 2.3 million children in Yemen are suffering from acute malnutrition, including 400,000 children who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and are in urgent need of life-saving support.