⁍ Parts of Yemen are seeing their highest levels of acute malnutrition in children, heightening warnings that the country is approaching a dire food security crisis.

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⁍ Drivers of malnutrition in Yemen worsened in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic, economic decline, floods, escalating conflict and significant underfunding of this year’s aid response have compounded an already bleak hunger situation after almost six years of war.

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⁍ The U.N. says the country is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of the population reliant on humanitarian aid.

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– “Yemen is on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis,” says Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. “If the war doesn’t end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing an entire generation of Yemen’s young children.” A new report from the UN warns that acute malnutrition cases in children under the age of 5 are on the rise in the country, where a civil war has been going on for nearly six years, Reuters reports. In 2020, more than half a million children under the age of 5 will need treatment for acute malnutrition; cases of severe acute malnutrition are on the rise, with 15.5% of children under the age of 5 suffering from it. The situation is especially dire in the country’s south, which is under the control of the internationally recognized government. About 1.4 million children under the age of 5 live in that part of the country. “We’ve been warning since July that Yemen is on the brink of a catastrophic food security crisis,” Grande says. “If the war doesn’t end now, we are nearing an irreversible situation and risk losing an entire generation of Yemen’s young children.”