The New York Times: “It’s a Slow Death”: The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis

Directors of UNICEF, WFP, and WHO visited Yemen in July and described the “world’s worst cholera outbreak in the midst of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.” Since the start of the conflict when the Houthis overthrew the government and gained control of Sana’a in 2014, Yemen has slowly collapsed. Frequent bombings have contributed to the deaths of more than 10,000 civilians and crippled the country’s infrastructure, weakening the economy and preventing humanitarian relief agencies from sending aid to the area. Yemen was already the poorest country in the Arab world, and the weakened economy means many key professionals from physicians to sewage workers go without wages. Some have not seen a paycheck in close to a year. As a result, many cannot work or support their own families. This lack of resources and continuous conflict, combined with an unusually heavy rainy season, fuels the rising cholera epidemic that has killed 2000. Yemen’s crisis is a global public health crisis as cholera is highly contagious, and antibiotic-resistant forms could emerge. – YaleGlobal