[14/03/2018 05:00]

NY-SABA
Minister of Social Affairs Ibtihaj al-Kamal said the war that the Houthi rebels have been waging has pushed the suffering of rural and urban women in Yemen to catastrophic levels.

In a speech in the 62nd session of the UN General Assembly Commission on the Status of Women in New York on Tuesday, she said that this war caused an extreme rise in the level of malnutrition and lack of food security among pregnant women.

"Nearly 1,500,000 pregnant are suffering sharp malnutrition, which exposed 75,000 of them to serious health complications during baby delivery," she said.

She said that Yemen has seen famine-like conditions and the spread of the epidemics of cholera and diphtheria. Cholera has claimed 2500 lives, 67% of them are children and women.

She said that the militia has forced the displacement of three million Yemenis, 76% of them were women and children.

Human rights groups documented that 3230 women suffered traumas because of recurrent panics associated with the Houthi heavy bombardment on their neighborhoods. Thirty six of those women suffered memory loss and 41 others who happened to be pregnant suffered miscarriages.

She said that young and old women were subjected to killing, injury and arrest at the hands of radical militiamen. She said that the war increase maternal mortality and the death of elderly women, people of special needs and people with terminal illnesses to the highest level in the Arab world as the UN estimates.

She said that the government is seeking to pay special attention to women and empower them in all possible fields. She cited President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's appointment of women as ministers, ambassadors and in key social and economic decision-making positions.

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