Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Yemen’s forgotten children
With Christmas and new year centred around children, how many of us have given a thought over the holiday season to the children of Yemen — and how much of the general public knows of Britain’s role in their suffering, asks IAN SINCLAIR
An estimated 77 per cent of the 4.3m people displaced in Yemen are women and children, according to Reliefweb, the information service provided by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In 2018 Save the Children reported that “an estimated 85,000 children under five may have died from extreme hunger” since April 2015.

I RECENTLY gained an insight into the horrific conditions in the troubled Middle East nation when I watched Hunger Ward.

Released in 2020, the MTV documentary is filmed inside two therapeutic feeding centres in Yemen, following two female healthcare workers treating starving children in the midst of the war.

Just 40 minutes long, it’s a harrowing, heart-breaking watch: we see resuscitation being carried out on a baby and the family wailing in grief after the child dies.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
IS albums
Album reviews / 6 October 2025
6 October 2025

New releases from Steady Habits, Jeff Tweedy, and Tom Skinner

ai con
Books / 2 October 2025
2 October 2025

IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a lucid critique of a technology that reproduces and enables oppression, power, and environmental devastation

IS
Album reviews / 22 September 2025
22 September 2025

Reviews of new releases by Wednesday, Suede, and Nation of Language

IS 2
Album reviews / 9 September 2025
9 September 2025

Reviews of new releases by Jens Lekman, Big Thief, and Christian McBride Big Band

Similar stories
This June 2023 photo provided by the World Food Programme shows food distribution by the WFP for internally displaced persons at the Wad Almajzoub farm camp in Wad Medani, Gezira state, Sudan
Sudan / 2 July 2025
2 July 2025
Smoke rises from a location reportedly struck by U.S. airstr
Editorial: / 16 March 2025
16 March 2025
FINGERS IN THE SYRIAN PIE: Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer a
Features / 2 January 2025
2 January 2025
The media’s shocking lack of interest in US-British involvement in Syria means it has effectively been a secret war, argues IAN SINCLAIR
ARCHITECTS OF SLAUGHTER : Jonathan Powell (right)and Alastai
Features / 23 November 2024
23 November 2024
The British press has welcomed Keir Starmer’s new National Security Adviser without any mention of his deep, central involvement in the criminal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan — but history remembers, writes IAN SINCLAIR