While infants and young children are among the least able to cope with chronic hunger according to WHO, the UN health agency said that medical teams in the war-shattered enclave have been admitting increasing numbers of dangerously underweight pregnant women.
“This is entirely man-made, everything we’re seeing medically; this was a territory where the health system functioned well,” said Dr Harris, adding that malnutrition was “non-existent”. “It was a population that could feed itself,” she insisted.