Cholera death toll in Yemen reaches at least 180: Red Cross

Cholera has killed at least 180 people in Yemen in recent weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday, a day after authorities declared a state of emergency in the capital Sanaa and called for international help.

Sanaa is controlled by the armed Houthi movement, which is aligned with Iran and fighting a Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition. More than 10,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in more than two years of war, which has also destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.

Only a few medical facilities are still functioning and two-thirds of the population are without access to safe drinking water, the United Nations has said.

Dominik Stillhart of the ICRC told reporters in the port city of Aden that at least 180 people had died from the acute diarrhoeal disease since April 27, and that 11,000 more suspected cholera cases had been reported across the impoverished country.

Houthi authorities have said 115 of those who have died were in the city of Sanaa and its province.

“What is happening today exceeds the capabilities of any healthy health system, so how can we (cope) when we are in these difficult and complicated conditions,” Saba news agency quoted the Houthi-run administration’s health minister Mohammed Salem bin Hafeedh as saying.

The ministry, after meeting in Sanaa with U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick and other international officials, called on humanitarian organizations and aid donors to help it avert an “unprecedented disaster”.

 

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