Yemen's cholera crisis laid bare in new hospital footage
New footage from inside several hospitals in Yemen reveals the crisis facing the war-torn country as it battles to contain one of the world's worst ever outbreaks of cholera.
The videos, provided to CNN by the International Rescue Committee, show children being treated for possible symptoms of the infectious disease in hospitals and mobile health units in the city of Aden and other areas in southern Yemen in late August.
A ravaged health care system, devastated infrastructure and near famine -- the results of a bloody civil war that began in March 2015 -- have all contributed to the spread of what the World Health Organization has described as "the worst cholera outbreak in the world."
Mohammed Alawi Hadi, 6, and his brother Salih Alawi Hadi, 3, are treated for cholera at a hospital in Aden.
Mohammed Alawi Hadi, 6, and his brother Salih Alawi Hadi, 3, are treated for cholera at a hospital in Aden.
Sabah Abdullah Salim, whose 2-year-old son, Mohammed, has cholera, sought help from an IRC mobile hospital in Al Buraiqeh.
She told the IRC that her family fled the ongoing violence only to end up in a village without clean water.
"My son was crying, and he had diarrhea, and he started losing weight, so I brought him (to an IRC mobile hospital team)," she said in the video. "This makes me feel sad and stressed. I even cry. I would love to live in a place where there is no war and no illnesses.
"I hope one day we will be able to eat, walk, drink and live happily in our city and not keep on moving from one city to another and watch our kids suffer from different illnesses."
Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness that kills tens of thousands of people worldwide each year. Infections are contracted by consuming food or water contaminated with the fecal bacteria Vibrio cholerae.
Last week, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross' delegation to Yemen warned that the number of cholera cases there would reach 1 million by the end of 2017.
