Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty
Amal Hussain, a 7-year-old Yemeni girl who was featured in a New York Times story about the country’s “man-made” famine, has reportedly died. According to the Times, Hussain died in a refugee camp in the war-torn country after a hospital visit failed to improve her condition. “My heart is broken,” her mother, Mariam Ali, told the newspaper through tears. “Amal was always smiling. Now I’m worried for my other children.” The Saudi-led war in the country has reportedly resulted in a famine that has made food scarce and increasingly expensive. Hussain’s family was living near the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia in a province called Saada when Saudi-led airstrikes forced them to flee three years ago.
Saudi Arabia has reportedly launched “at least 18,000” airstrikes in Yemen. The newspaper reports there are 1.8 million “severely malnourished children” in the country, and the United Nations warned that the number of people relying on emergency rations could rise to 14 million—or half of Yemen’s population.