Yemeni human rights defender and Nobel peace Prize Winner Tawakkol Karman has called for launching  a relief campaign to rescue the coastal region of Tihama where most people are threatened by famine,

holding the coup alliance, consisting of the Iran-backed Houthi militia and forces loyal to ousted president Saleh, responsible for the desperately worsening humanitarian situation there.

Karman, who has recently been rewarded the Freedom Award by the US National Civil Rights Museum, and announced to donate her prize money to relief work in Tihama, said in a statement posted on Facebook that the region of Tihama has already suffered from “a real famine”, pointing out that the reason behind that lies primarily in the fascist coup. 

The founding president of Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) added as an afterthought, “We all have today a joint responsibility to undertake the task of relief work”.    

According to the city health bureau in deserted area of Yemen's al-Tohaita district, 10 cases of death have been documented due to severe acute malnutrition and dehydration, which are rampant in the area. 

The bureau has documented about 770 cases of children with severe acute malnutrition and 1027 other cases suffering from moderate malnutrition as well as many others suffering from malnutrition along the coastline.

In a visit to Yemen’s western Red Sea city of Hodeida last month, the UN’s humanitarian aid chief, Stephen O’Brien, described the situation there as very bad, warning of “very severe needs”. 

“It is of course absolutely devastating when you see such terrible malnutrition,” Stephen O’Brien said commenting on seeing very small children affected by malnutrition in the city. 

Yemen’s approximately 14 million people are already short of food, the UN has said, and nearly 3 million people included who require urgent nutrition assistance. Moreover, about 2.1 million people are currently acutely malnourished, including 1.5 million children – 370,000 of whom are suffering from “severe acute malnutrition.