SANAA — Dozens of children trapped in the Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen are on the verge of death due to famine.

Heartbreaking pictures emerged of the suffering children looking frail and weak on various social media platforms. Despite the criticalness of the situation, the Houthis continue to jeopardize humanitarian aid attempts.

Thousands of families are unable to provide basics such as bread and milk for their children.

Critical cases

According to humanitarian activists, malnutrition has spread like wildfire among children in seized areas, especially in the Haffash directorate in Al-Mehweet governorate north of Yemen.

Dozens of children will die if immediate action is not taken, they added. Other diseases have also begun to emerge among the population.

The Houthi militia have been tampering with available humanitarian aid, selling it on the black market and distributing the products among themselves, said the activists.

The activists continued to call on international humanitarian organizations to save the children.

Probe urged into arson

attack on press group

A global media watchdog has called for an urgent investigation into an arson attack on a newspaper group in Aden.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the March 1 attack on the Al-Shomou publishing house showed that media faced attack across Yemen, in the government-controlled south as well as the rebel-held north.

Al-Shomou publishes a daily and a weekly newspaper considered close to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Much of Aden has been in the hands of southern separatists supported by the United Arab Emirates since a deadly split in loyalist ranks in January.

In a video purportedly captured by Al-Shomou security cameras and widely shared by Yemeni journalists on Twitter, armed men wearing masks are seen breaking into the printing room before dawn and herding staff outside at gunpoint.

One of the gunmen then returns to douse the presses with petrol and set them on fire in mid print-run.

"The arson attack on Al-Shomou Foundation's newspapers shows that journalists are being targeted with impunity across every inch of Yemen," the CPJ's Sherif Mansour said in a statement late Tuesday.

He called on "all authorities" in Aden to find out who was behind the attack "in areas they purport to control".

In late February, Yemeni journalist Awad Kashmim went missing in the government-controlled port city of Mukalla after criticizing journalists who had aligned themselves with "regional parties".

Journalists have also gone missing in rebel-held areas. — Agencies