Yemen's tragedy has not gone away

Worthy of only the occasional mention by the mass media, Yemen's problems continue unabated. More than one million malnourished children aged under five in Yemen are living in areas with high levels of cholera, the charity Save The Children warned. Cholera,  is spread by ingestion of food or water contaminated by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium, can kill within hours if untreated.

The deadly cholera epidemic started in April 2015 has infected more than 425,000 people and killed almost 1,900. Save the Children said children under the age of 15 are now accounting for about 44 percent of new cases and 32 percent of fatalities in Yemen where a devastating civil war and economic collapse has left millions on the brink of starvation.

"The tragedy is both malnutrition and cholera are easily treatable if you have access to basic healthcare," said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children's Country Director for Yemen. "But hospitals and clinics have been destroyed, government health workers haven't been paid for almost a year, and the delivery of vital aid is being obstructed."

the United Nations last week to revise its humanitarian assessment and it now calculates 20.7 million Yemenis are in need of assistance, up from the previous figure of 18.8 million in a population of 28 million. Oxfam describes the number of people infected with cholera as "the largest ever recorded in any country in a single year since records began"