Yemen’s civil war returns and overwhelms hospitals with 'a very dangerous situation'

ADEN, Yemen -- Tarek al-Salami, aged 7, sat in a diaper, looking frail. Normally, the malnutrition and diarrhea that weakened his tiny frame would have been treated within a few days, but nothing is normal in Yemen anymore.Tarek's father carried him on foot from the southwestern city of Mokha as Iran-backed rebels swept in this month, bringing a return to civil war. The boy reached a hospital two days later in the government-held city of Aden, 270 kilometers (170 miles) away but it said it had no beds. Like others, it was overwhelmed by the wounded. They finally found a therapeutic feeding center.The boy arrived in “acute crisis” after the delay in care, according to the center's director, Dr. Arwa Atef, and he only began walking again on Wednesday, over a week later.“I swear to God, when I look at him, my heart breaks,” said his father, Mohammed al-Salami. “He looks almost lifeless.”This is how the already fragile health system in the Arab world’s poorest nation is collapsing, caught in a new front of the Iran war. The Associated Press spoke with patients, medical workers and aid groups in Yemen and outside as medicines run short and some workers flee. A few facilities have been o...