(25 Sep 2018) The United Nations (UN) and independent donors are rushing food to a desperate corner of northern Yemen where starving villagers were found to be living off leaves.
Aid officials are searching for ways to ensure aid reaches those in need amid alarm that the country's hunger crisis is worsening beyond the already strained capabilities of the relief effort.
The aid push was directed at the district of Aslam, in Hajjah province, where earlier this month The Associated Press found some families eating leaves.
But difficulties in tracking the near-famine remain, with conditions appearing to be as bad or worse in the neighbouring district of Khayran al-Maharraq.
A few weeks ago Shouib Sakaf buried his 3-year-old daughter, Zaifa, the fifth child known to have died in the district this year from malnutrition-related illness.
Sakaf prayed over a grave marked by piles of stones and tangled, dry branches from the surrounding mountain shrubs.
Zaifa was as old as Yemen’s civil war, waged between rebels, known as Houthis, and a coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
Born in the war’s early days, Zaida succumbed to the humanitarian crisis it has caused - widespread hunger, the collapse of the economy and the breakdown of the health system.
In her final weeks, she wasted away, her ribs protruding, her face and feet swollen.
At a local medical facility which did not have enough supplies, her father was told she had to be taken to a hospital farther away to treat kidney complications.
"They referred my daughter to another hospital but I have no ability to pay money,” Sakaf, a poor construction worker, said.
With no medications but ready-to-use therapeutic food in the only functioning health centre in Aslam district, Zaifa quickly developed complications: kidney failure.
A week later, she died.  
Across Yemen, around 2.9 million women and children are acutely malnourished; another 400,000 children are fighting for their lives, in the same condition as Zaifa was.
During the first six months of this year, the UN and humanitarian groups provided assistance to more than 8 million of the most vulnerable Yemenis who don't know where their next meal will come.
That is a dramatic expansion from 2017, when food was reaching 3 million people a month in the country of 29 million.
An official at Khayran al-Maharraq hospital said the facility receives more than 60 cases of severe malnutrition a month, but has to send them elsewhere because it has no supplies.
On Friday UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock issued a dire warning to the Security Council ahead of the world body’s General Assembly, saying that the fight against famine in Yemen was being lost.
Lowcock spoke after the AP alerted UN relief officials to the villagers in Aslam district, an isolated area in Hajjah province.
After the AP report, activists launched an online campaign called "Rescue Aslam" with bank account details to collect donations.
Some 50 food baskets financed by individual donors have been distributed over the past days.
But getting relief to those in need has been complicated because international agencies are required to work from lists complied by local Houthi authorities.
Critics accuse those authorities of favouritism in putting together the lists.
To combat this, the WFP is introducing a system biometric registration, under which it will gather a database of beneficiaries with their fingerprints to avoid forgery and duplications.
At least 20 children are known to have died of starvation already this year in Hajjah province.

Find out more about AP Archive: aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: facebook.com/APArchives ​​
Instagram: instagram.com/APNews/

You can license this story through AP Archive: aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/e32e8d1df7d0142e69cec88b041ee1e1

• Agencies race to deliver aid to parts of Yemen facing extreme hunger ( Download)
• Millions of children threatened by famine in Yemen: charity ( Download)
• Is hunger the new weapon of choice in the war in Yemen ( Download)
• Cholera, hunger and war are ravaging Yemen. What role does the U.S. play ( Download)
• Yemen: 85,000 children under five may have died from starvation, international aid group says ( Download)
• Yemen's Hungry Children: Victims of man-made disaster ( Download)
• Starving Yemenis forced to eat leaves for survival ( Download)
• Inside Yemen Hunger, Humanitarian Aid, and Hope ( Download)
• Skye Fitzgerald - “Hunger Ward” & Documenting Yemen’s Famine | The Daily Social Distancing Show ( Download)
• UN considers cutting aid to parts of Yemen ( Download)
• 🇺🇳 🇾🇪 UN warns food aid to Yemen could be suspended | Al Jazeera English ( Download)
• WFP raises red flag, says crisis second biggest after Yemen ( Download)
• PBS News Hour full episode, Oct. 17, 2024 ( Download)
• International organizations sounding alarm as Yemenis face starvation ( Download)
• Yemenis divided over president ( Download)