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Marib: Health needs grow in what was considered the safe haven of Yemen

Yemen 2021 © Nuha Haider/MSF

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Yemen

After seven years of war, chronic shortages of supplies and staff have led to the collapse of Yemen’s health system.

Related

  • COVID-19
  • Maternal health
  • Malnutrition
  • Snakebite
  • Malaria
View more

Our work in Yemen

Yemen has been hit hard by waves of COVID-19, but this is just one of many crises unfolding in a country still at war. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) runs some of its largest medical projects in Yemen to meet the growing needs of people suffering as a result of conflict, displacement, and extreme hardship.

What's happening in Yemen?

The conflict in Yemen showed no sign of abating, despite the rampant spread of COVID-19 in the country. More people than ever before were left without health care, as many of the last parts of the already crippled health care system stopped functioning during the outbreak.

Restrictions by the local authorities on the work of aid organizations complicated our work, and healthcare facilities and workers continued to be attacked. Many civilians were killed or injured in shelling, air raids, or shootings.

An MSF doctor examines a child during a mobile clinic for displaced people in Khudaish camp, Abs, Yemen. September 2020.

How we're helping in Yemen

In 2020, MSF ran 12 hospitals and health centers and supported 13 others in 13 governorates across the country.

Facilities have been hit by aerial attacks six times since the start of the conflict, impeding our ability to provide care.

Responding to crises

Despite the heavy toll that COVID-19 took on Yemen, the number of airstrikes and active frontlines increased. Our teams across the country offered surgical care for the wounded, and in 2020 built a new operating theater in Haydan, in the far north of Sa’ada. Our teams in Taiz, Hodeidah, and Mocha also witnessed dramatic upsurges in fighting that sent many wounded people to us for lifesaving treatment. In Marib, also the scene of active conflict, we provided general health care to Yemenis, migrants, and marginalized people.

Caring for mothers and their newborn children remained a priority for us; for example, in Abs hospital, where we frequently assisted more than a thousand births every month, and at our mother and child hospital in Taiz Houban. Our teams in Hodeidah saw how the fighting further limited people’s access to care for snakebites and diseases such as malaria and dengue.

The hospital we support in Abs, in Hajjah governorate, witnessed a sustained increase in the number of malnourished children admitted for treatment. Our hospitals in Haydan and Khamir also saw higher than usual seasonal peaks of malnutrition. While it is difficult to know for certain what the causes of the increases were, living costs in Yemen have risen, particularly for food and fuel. Some health care facilities previously supported by international aid organizations have reduced their services, as the funding for the relief effort in Yemen has dried up. As a result, sick children have not received treatment for their illnesses and have gone on to develop malnutrition.  

Nevertheless, in the areas where we work, we have not yet seen evidence that a famine is imminent, a situation where large swathes of a population, adults as well as children, are affected, and die from a combination of a lack of food and diseases brought on by this deficiency. 

SEE MORE

How we're helping in 2020

250,300

Outpatient consultations

84,600

People admitted to hospital

26,600

Surgical interventions

23,400

Births assisted

1,950

Patients admitted for COVID-19

1,410

People treated for cholera

More news and stories

View more related news & stories

Learn about MSF’s journalistic roots and our commitment to bear witness and speak out about the plight of the people we treat.

TESTIMONY (INT): Maryam, Patient at Abs hospital - Mother and Child in Yemen

Story Feb 21, 2022

Yemen: MSF teams in Abs hospital treat people injured in bombing

Read More
MSF nurse Yaseem checks the temperature of a patient

Story Jan 31, 2022

Yemen: Displaced people in Marib struggle to survive in the desert

Read More
MSF doctor Abdul Malik examining one-year-old baby

Story Jan 27, 2022

Yemen: As war escalates, MSF cares for displaced people in Marib

Read More

Learn about MSF’s journalistic roots and our commitment to bear witness and speak out about the plight of the people we treat.

View more related news & stories

How you can help

Not everyone can treat patients in the field. But everyone can do something.

Some humanitarian crises make the headlines—others don’t. Unrestricted support from our donors allows us to mobilize quickly and efficiently to provide lifesaving medical care to the people who need it most, whether those needs are in the spotlight or not. And your donation is 100 percent tax-deductible.

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