A searing portrait of the starving girl published in The New York Times last week drew an impassioned response from readers. They expressed heartbreak. They offered money for her family. They wrote in to ask if she was getting better.
The stark photograph of such a young child in pain — Hussain was suffering from severe acute malnutrition — was emblematic of the brutal civil war that has pushed millions to the brink of starvation.
The photograph by Pulitzer Prize-winner Tyler Hicks, showed the emaciated girl lying on a bed inside a mobile UNICEF clinic in Aslam.
Speaking to The Takeaway radio programme earlier this week, the photographer described how photographing Amal was “difficult” and “heartbreaking” but also “important.”, ALJAZEERA mentioned.
On Thursday, Amal’s family said she had died at a ragged refugee camp four miles from the hospital.
“My heart is broken,” said her mother, Mariam Ali, who wept during a phone interview. “Amal was always smiling. Now I’m worried for my other children.”, New York Times reported.
The grievous human cost of the Saudi-led war in Yemen has jumped to the top of the global agenda as the outcry over the killing of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi prompts Western leaders to re-examine their support for the war.
Riveting images of malnourished Yemenis like Amal — one of 1.8 million severely malnourished children in Yemen — have put a human face to fears that a catastrophic man-made famine could engulf the country in the coming months.
Oxfam America calls on the United States to end its support for the Saudi coalition, and readers react to the “gut-wrenching” images of starving Yemeni children.
UN experts from the World Food Programme say that the coalition’s bombing of civilians are potential war crimes and that its partial blockade of the country has put 12 million men, women and children at risk of starvation in what could become the worst famine in 100 years.
In an interview Thursday with CNN, Martin Griffiths, the UN envoy to Yemen, acknowledged that Khashoggi’s October 2 killing “catalyzed” calls for peace in Yemen.
Civilians, including children, have borne the brunt of the conflict which has killed at least 10,000 people since the coalition intervened in Yemen, according to the UN. The death toll has not been updated in years and is likely to be far higher. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), an independent watchdog, recently said around 56,000 Yemenis had been killed in the violence.
The UN has repeatedly criticised the alliance’s bombing campaign and placed it on a blacklist of child rights violators last year.
ُtop supporting Yemen war
Amal is Arabic for “hope,” and some readers expressed hope that the graphic image of her distress could help galvanize attention on a war in which tens of thousands of civilians have died from violence, hunger or disease. Last year, Yemen suffered the largest cholera epidemic in modern times, with over a million cases.
Death of Amal made waves in twitter. Every one wrote on Twitter in reaction to this tragedy and condemned Saudi and U.S and call for an end on Saudi war in Yemen.