Starvation leaves him too weak even to cry
Skin and bones, 10-year-old Ghazi Saleh lies on a hospital bed in Yemen's government-held third city Taez barely breathing. He weighs just eight kilogrammes (less than 18 pounds).
Starving and too weak to move or even cry, Ghazi can only look down at his emaciated body as he struggles to keep his eyes open.
Some 14 million Yemenis are at risk of famine, more than four years into the country's war.
At Al-Mudhafar Hospital where Ghazi is being treated, medics go from one bed to another to check on malnourished children -- including infants.
Eman Ali, a nurse at the hospital, said that Ghazi suffers from acute malnutrition.
"He has not eaten properly for a while now, and he ultimately reached this situation," she told AFP.
While some doctors and nurses weighed children, others tried to feed the young patients through syringes as they have become too weak to swallow.
Cases of malnourished children have become a reflection of the health system in Yemen, where children bear the brunt of the war between the Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels.
Aid organisation Save the Children said on Wednesday that as many as 85,000 infants under the age of five may have died from starvation or disease since the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in March 2015.
"Children who die in this way suffer immensely as their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop," said Save the Children's Yemen director Tamer Kirolos.
While the United Nations is hoping for peace talks to take place in Sweden by the end of this year, the situation on the ground remains dire with millions of children starving.
According to the UN children's agency (UNICEF), more than half of the 14 million people on the edge of famine are children. More than 22 million people -- three quarters of the Yemen's population -- now depend on humanitarian assistance to survive.
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