UN: Yemen Could Be Worst Humanitarian Crisis in 50 Years

“The situation in Yemen, today, right now, to the population of the country, looks like the apocalypse,” the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told Al-Jazeera on Friady.

“The cholera outbreak is probably the worst the world has ever seen with a million suspected cases up to the end of 2017,” Lowcock stressed.

Lowcock said “a terrible new epidemic” of diphtheria, a bacterial disease which should be completely preventable by immunization, has already “affected up to 500 people with dozens and dozens of deaths” in the past few weeks.

“That is going to spread like wildfire,” Lowcock undelined, adding that “Unless the situation changes, we’re going to have the world’s worst humanitarian disaster for 50 years”.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen since March 2015 to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 15,500 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

The World Health Organisation has also reported that almost 500 cases of diphtheria are suspected in Yemen.

The cholera outbreak in Yemen which began in April, has also claimed over 2,200 lives and has infected about one million people, as the nation has been suffering from what the World Health Organization (WHO) describes as the “largest epidemic in the world” amid a non-stop bombing campaign led by Saudi Arabia.

Also Riyadh’s deadly campaign prevented the patients from traveling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country.