The Story Behind This Photo Is Absolutely Heartbreaking

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According to UNICEF, more than 320,000 children are at risk of severe malnutrition in Yemen. Even before the war broke out, there were approximately 13 million people who were denied access to clean water, and 82 percent of the country’s population mainly relies on humanitarian aid for survival.

Yemen has the highest malnutrition rates in the entire world.

In just the past year, that number has risen to more than 19 million. However, precise figures of how many people have died from malnutrition is unknown.

These heartbreaking photos show five-month-old Udai Faisal in a hospital in Sanaa. He never stood a chance. The impoverished village of Hazyaz where his family lived has been constantly hit by airstrikes, and starvation is not uncommon in the region. Limited supplies and rising food prices meant that the family was only able to eat once a day.

Udai was born into war and ended up starving to death two days after these pictures were taken. His tiny, frail body was nothing more than skin and bones when he perished.

“He didn’t cry and there were no tears, just stiff,” his mother Intissar Hezzam said. “I screamed and fainted.”

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