There is not much to say about this short documentary other than it is shocking and saddening. Unfortunately I have seen this time and time again in my life and rest assured it will not be my last. War can kill thousands if not millions outright. It can also kill through a longer process called starvation. I can only imagine the psychological toll on parents of their starving children and on their health care providers.
Yemen is in the midst of a civil war which started in 2014 one side backed by Saudi Arabia and the other by Iran. Who is to blame for a situation in which 50,000 Yemenis are starving and 400,000 children are expected to starve? Yes we can apportion the blame to the Yemenis waging this war and their allies. Yemen is on the verge of a total collapse and the United Nation’s has called this a huge humanitarian crisis. Apportion blame as you wish but that will not put food in the mouths of Yemeni children.
Skye Fitzgerald, the film’s director, could be labelled as creating a piece of misery porn if you are heartless and cynical. But to the credit of Fitzgerald there is not a whole lot of moralizing in the documentary other than that implicitly attached to the shocking footage. It just shows matters as they are and they are heartbreaking as we see children dying of malnutrition before our eyes and many on the edge of death. The innocent are the most vulnerable children. It was filmed from inside two of the most active therapeutic feeding centres in Yemen. It is one of the ten films on the shortlist for an Academy award.
The world premiere will be March 1st on Pluto TV’s 24/7 Documentary Channel, Pluto TV Documentaries at 7 p.m. ET.
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