Yemen Highest Rate of Underweight Five Year Olds
USAID, 45% of Yemeni kids under age five are underweight.
Yemen is tied for the highest rate of underweight children globally with Afghanistan. In contrast, 3% of kids under five in the Palestinian Territories are underweight. Many people assume the highest child hunger rate rate is in sub-Saharan Africa, but no, Yemeni kids are the skinniest in the world. There’s 46% underweight and 53% stunted kids, per UNICEF-Yemen.
UNICEF shows kids in the Palestinian Territories are 5% underweight and 10% stunted. So things are five time worse in Yemen according to the statistics and there’s millions more Yemeni kids. The point I’m trying to make is Yemeni kids need to be seen in the correct context of global hunger and deserve proportionate international attention as well. The US administration is requesting 4.3 million from Congress in Child Survival Account funds in 2008, in addition to the USAID, food aid and other aid. But aid isn’t really the answer in the long term.
