ISTANBUL

Amal Hussein, the seven-year-old Yemeni girl whose emaciated body appeared in the New York Times last week has died of malnourishment, the Times reported on Friday

In its Thursday edition, the Times quoted members of Amal’s family as saying that she had “died at a ragged refugee camp four miles from the hospital”

“My heart is broken,” the girl’s mother, Mariam Ali, was quoted as saying in a telephone interview. “Now I’m worried for my other children.” 

According to the newspaper, some 1.8 million Yemeni children currently suffer from severe malnourishment.

The Times also quoted Dr. Mekkia Mahdi, a Yemeni doctor who had treated the girl shortly before her death, as saying: “We have many more cases like her.” 

On Thursday, the UN announced that some 5.6 million Yemenis are now living in a state of semi-famine.

Two days earlier, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock warned of “an imminent famine” in the war-ravaged country.

Impoverished Yemen has remained wracked by violence since 2014, when Shia Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including capital Sanaa.

The conflict escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a devastating air campaign in Yemen aimed at rolling back Houthi gains. 

The ongoing violence has destroyed much of Yemen’s infrastructure, including water and sanitation systems, prompting the UN to describe the situation as one of “the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times”.