SHAFAQNA – Yemen’s Resistance government declared a state of emergency over a sudden outbreak of cholera in the capital, Sana’a.
Cholera has spread through all the city’s districts, infecting 2,567 people, the Resistance-controlled news agency said on Sunday. The disease, transmitted by contaminated food and water, has claimed 116 lives in 14 provinces during the last two weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement, Bloomberg reported.
Yemen’s sanitation infrastructure has nearly collapsed after more than two years of Saudi opposed war against Yemeni people. Approximately 7.6 million people live in cholera-threatened areas, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), Deutsche Welle reported.
Yemen has been since March 25 subjected to a devastating aggression by Saudi-led coalition, and less than half of the country’s health facilities are functioning two years into the conflict.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday the cholera outbreak has killed 115 people and left 8,500 ill between April 27 and Saturday.
This is the second outbreak of cholera in less than a year in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country.
The World Health Organization now classifies Yemen as one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in the world alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq.
Critical food imports are also at an all-time low as many of the country’s Red Sea ports are blockaded by the Saudi-led coalition.