WHO HIGHLIGHTS

• Acute malnutrition rates among children under five are the highest ever recorded in parts of Yemen, with more than half a million cases in southern districts.

• New agreements were signed with the Republic of Korea and the Islamic Development Bank, respectively, to support the COVID-19 response in Yemen.

• A total of 204,291 suspected cholera cases and 53 associated deaths were reported during the first ten months of 2020.

• On 4 and 5 October, two UN chartered flights carried back to Sanaa a group of civilian Yemenis who had been receiving medical treatment in Jordan for different diseases and conditions that cannot be treated in Yemen.

Situation Update

• Malnutrition surges among young children in Yemen as conditions worsen: Acute malnutrition rates among children under five are the highest ever recorded in parts of Yemen, with more than half a million cases in southern districts, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Acute Malnutrition analysis released in October 2020 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP). The analysis – which is for 133 districts in southern parts of Yemen only, home to 1.4 million children under five – has revealed a near 10 per cent increase in cases of acute malnutrition in 2020. The most significant increase is in cases of young children suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) with a 15.5 per cent rise during 2020. This increase leaves at least 98,000 children under five at high risk of dying without urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition. A dangerous combination of factors, driven by conflict and economic decline, compound the situation for Yemen's youngest children. In the worst-hit areas included in this analysis - Abyan lowlands (23 per cent), Lahj lowlands (21 per cent), Taizz lowlands (22 per cent)-, around one in five children are acutely malnourished. In Al Hudaydah's lowlands, more than one in four (27 per cent) of children are acutely malnourished.

• Conflict continues across Yemen, disrupting livelihoods and reducing access to income and humanitarian assistance. As of the end of October, there were 47 active front lines across Yemen – the most ever recorded. The heaviest clashes have occurred in Al Hudaydah, Marib and Al Jawf. Around one million people who are displaced are sheltering in and around Marib city. As a result of conflict, people continue to flee their homes with over 150,000 new displaced this year, most of them in Marib. On 24 October, an attack on the Al Amal Hospital for Cancer Treatment in Taizz Governorate injured two health care workers and damaged the facility. Patients, most of them children, have been left in a state of panic. Health partners have documented 163 attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities across Yemen since the beginning of the war .