video transcript

STORY: With 58 percent of children under the age of five stunted by malnutrition, Yemen faces a crisis. UNICEF's Executive Director Anthony Lake warns that thousands more face life-threatening famine. (SOUNDBITE) UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake saying (English): "In Yemen, there are over 250,000 children who suffer from severe, acute malnutrition, which means they could die very soon. This is almost as many as there were in Somalia during the height of the crisis last year." Lake is touring the Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen's capital. Yemen is one of the poorest in the Arab world. The famine has been exacerbated by political turmoil, which began in early 2011. (SOUNDBITE) UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake saying (English): "These children are the human faces in those statistics, every one of them and their voices are not being heard, the voices of their mothers are not being heard around the world. And we need more attention to Yemen and all the progress we can make especially if we concentrate in improving health facilities at a community level." UNICEF estimates that Yemen currently has the highest level of chronic malnutrition in the world, behind Afghanistan. Sharon Reich, Reuters