(SANAA, Yemen) — The International Committee of the Red Cross says around 1 million people in war-ravaged Yemen are believed to have been infected in a cholera outbreak that began last year.
The outbreak, which began in October 2016 and escalated in April, has killed more than 2,000 people.
The Red Cross said Thursday that more than 80 percent of Yemen’s population lacks food, fuel, clean water and access to medical care.
A Saudi-led coalition has been at war with Iranian-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen since March 2015. The fighting has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced 3 million and damaged critical infrastructure, fueling the cholera outbreak.
#Yemen cholera update:
We can confirm that the country has now reached 1 million suspected cases of cholera.
This is devastating.
— ICRC (@ICRC) December 21, 2017
Even before the war, Yemen was the Arab world’s poorest country.