Thread by @declanwalsh

In Yemen an old dilemma took new form. We travel to crisis zones with bundles of hard cash that might go a long way for a hunger-stricken family. Shouldn't we pause, put down our notebooks, and help out?
nyti.ms/2ztWuGM

That's a question many readers asked after the death of Amal Hussain, the 7-year-old Yemen girl in a haunting @TylerHicksPhoto photo. Amal died a few days after we met her. Some wanted to know if we did anything to save her.

Amal was already receiving care in a hospital when we met her. Many others are not. But it did highlight the many stark, and often uncomfortable contrasts of life in Yemen, where millions of lives are finely balanced between life and death.

You see beggars gathered outside supermarkets filled with goods. Markets are filled with vegetables in areas where people eat boiled leaves. Restaurants serve rich food a few streets from hospitals where children are dying.

Those jarring contrasts stem from the nature of the crisis in Yemen. Starving people, for the most part, are not concentrated in camps. They are spread across the country. And the problem is not a lack of food - it's that people can't afford to buy what is there.

It's also a dilemma for Yemenis. One night, at our hotel in Hajjah, I heard what sounded like an explosion followed by a burst of light: fireworks. In this town where some were dying from malnutrition, others were getting on with living.

But even the weddings are a sign of stress. As the economy has collapse, people are selling cars, land, houses to make money. Some families push their daughters into marriage to earn a bride price.
Many are children: the rate of child marriage has shot up since the war.

The crisis is not an inevitable consequence of war. Measures taken by the Saudi-led coalition to crush the Houthis — blockades, import restrictions, non-payment of government salaries - have had a devastating effect. Food and fuel prices have soared.

Children have died because their parents can't afford a cab ride to a hospital.
This is one father at the grave of his son in a village in Hajjah. The second photo shows another of his sons, malnourished, in hospital.

As reporters, we're trained to bear witness. Helping the needy is the job of doctors and aid workers. Our task is to report, write, move on.
But sometimes, as I try to explain in the story, it's hard to look away.
nytimes.com/2018/11/29/wor… (end of thread)