ADEN/DUBAI, May 15 (Reuters) - Cholera has killed at least 180 people in Yemen in recent weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday, a day after authorities declared a state of emergency in the capital Sanaa and called for international help.

Sanaa is controlled by the armed Houthi movement, which is aligned with Iran and fighting a Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition. More than 10,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in more than two years of war, which has also destroyed much of the country's infrastructure.

Only a few medical facilities are still functioning and two-thirds of the population are without access to safe drinking water, the United Nations has said.

Dominik Stillhart of the ICRC told reporters in the port city of Aden that at least 180 people had died from the acute diarrhoeal disease since April 27, and that 11,000 more suspected cholera cases had been reported across the impoverished country.

Houthi authorities have said 115 of those who have died were in the city of Sanaa and its province.

"What is happening today exceeds the capabilities of any healthy health system, so how can we (cope) when we are in these difficult and complicated conditions," Saba news agency quoted the Houthi-run administration's health minister Mohammed Salem bin Hafeedh as saying.

The ministry, after meeting in Sanaa with U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick and other international officials, called on humanitarian organisations and aid donors to help it avert an "unprecedented disaster".

It declared a "state of health emergency in the capital," the agency said.

Saba said 8,595 suspected cholera cases were recorded in Sanaa and other Yemeni provinces between April 27 and May 13, while laboratory-confirmed cases were 213. The disease can be fatal within hours if left untreated.

The World Health Organization (WHO) earlier put the death toll at 51. It has also said that 7.6 million people in Yemen live in areas at high risk of cholera transmission.

A cholera epidemic late last year petered out but outbreaks are becoming more frequent.

Sanaa has been worst hit, followed by the surrounding province of Amanat al-Semah, WHO data has shown. Cases have also been reported in other major cities including Hodeidah, Taiz and Aden.

Some 17 million of Yemen's 26 million people lack sufficient food and at least three million malnourished children are in "grave peril", the U.N. has also said. (Reporting by Muhammed Mukhashaf and Ali Abdelatti Writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi, Sami Aboudi,; editing by John Stonestreet and Gareth Jones) </s> MOSCOW (Sputnik) - As many as nine people, including seven children, died from cholera in Yemen, Youssef Hadiri, the spokesman for the Health Ministry in the Houthi-controlled Sanaa, said on Sunday.

"The number of deaths caused by cholera totaled nine, five of [the dead] are female and four are male, with seven victims being children," Hadiri wrote in a tweet.

In late August, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said that the organization had vaccinated nearly 400,000 people in Yemen, however, the concerns about the possible emergence of another cholera epidemic remained.

According to the UN information, over 2,300 deaths from cholera have been registered in Yemen since April 2017.

Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces led by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi rebels for several years. The Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf nations has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request since March 2015.

READ MORE: Red Cross: Yemen Cholera Deaths Expected to Double by Year’s End </s> A cholera outbreak in war-torn Yemen has killed at least 115 people and left 8,500 ill as hospitals struggle to cope with an influx of patients, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said, citing figures compiled by the Yemeni health ministry.

ICRC said on Sunday that the victims died between April 27 and Saturday.

"We now are facing a serious outbreak of cholera," said ICRC director of operations Dominik Stillhart, at a news conference in the capital Sanaa.

More than 8,500 suspected cases of the waterborne disease were reported in the same period in 14 governorates across Yemen, Stillhart said, up from 2,300 cases in 10 governorates last week.

READ MORE: Ould Cheikh Ahmed - Yemen on 'brink of abyss'

This is the second outbreak of cholera in less than a year in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country.

Yemen is in the grips of a war between the Saudi-supported government and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, and fewer than half of the country's health facilities are functioning two years into the conflict.

Stillhart said hospitals were filled beyond capacity with patients displaying symptoms of cholera, a bacterial infection contracted through ingesting contaminated food or water.

"There are up to four cholera patients in one single bed," Stillhart said.

"There are people in the garden, and some even in their cars with the IV drip hanging from the window."

The World Health Organization now classifies Yemen as one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in the world alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq.

READ MORE: Famine 'largest humanitarian crisis in history of UN'

Critical food imports are also at an all-time low as many of the country's Red Sea ports are blockaded.

The United Nations has warned that 17 million people, equivalent to two-thirds of the population, are at imminent risk of famine in Yemen.

More than 8,000 people have been killed since the Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened to support Yemen's government in 2015, according to the WHO. </s> A cholera outbreak in war-ravaged Yemen could infect more than 300,000 people by the end of August, up from nearly 193,000 cases today, the United Nations said Friday.

"Probably at the end of August we will reach 300,000" cases, U.N. children's agency spokeswoman Meritxell Relano told reporters in Geneva during a conference call.

Since the outbreak was declared in April, an estimated 1,265 people have died, she said.

"The number of cases continue to increase," Relano said, adding that all of Yemen's 21 governorates have been affected.

She said that children had been hit hard by the outbreak, accounting for half of the registered cases to date.

But only a quarter of the people who have died so far were children, she said.

Cholera is a highly contagious bacterial infection spread through contaminated food or water.

Although the disease is easily treatable, doing so in conflict-torn Yemen has proved particularly difficult.

Two years of war between the Huthi rebels and government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab military coalition have killed more than 8,000 people and wounded 45,000 others.

According to the U.N. human rights agency, civilians account for nearly 5,000 of the recorded deaths and more than 8,500 of the injuries.

The conflict has also devastated the country's infrastructure, leaving more than half of its medical facilities out of service.

Yemen is also on the brink of famine, with about 17 million people -- two-thirds of the population -- uncertain of where their next meal will come from, according to the U.N.'s World Food Program.

"This is the largest humanitarian crisis happening in the world at the moment," WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher told reporters.

She said the agency was scaling up its response and aimed to provide food aid to 6.8 million people across the country this month alone.

But more than half of those people will receive reduced rations because of a dire funding shortage, she warned. </s> A cholera outbreak in war-torn Yemen has killed 115 people and left 8,500 ill as hospitals struggle to cope with an influx of patients, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Sunday. Patients with cholera symptoms receive medical attention in a hospital of field of Samaritan's Purse in Randelle, Haiti, on October 19, 2016 "We now are facing a serious outbreak of cholera," said ICRC director of operations Dominik Stillhart at a news conference in the capital Sanaa.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Manila Bulletin. </s> A state of emergency has been declared in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, after an outbreak of cholera killed scores of people.Hospitals in the city, which is controlled by Houthi rebels, are crowded with cholera patients.

The Red Cross says the number of suspected cases in the country has tripled in a week to more than 8,500.Yemen has been ravaged by hunger and civil war, allowing disease to spread rapidly.

Two-thirds of the population do not have access to safe drinking water, according to the UN.

Dominik Stillhart, director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross, told a news conference in Sanaa on Sunday that there had been 115 deaths from cholera nationwide from 27 April – 13 May.

“We now are facing a serious outbreak,” he said. Sanaa has been worst hit, followed by the surrounding province of Amanat al-Semah, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says.

Cholera is a water-borne disease that is transmitted through contaminated water and food.

Symptoms include acute diarrhoea and vomiting. People with cholera can become very sick and, if left untreated, death can occur within hours.

It is the second outbreak of cholera in Yemen in a year.The WHO said last week that fewer than 45% of health facilities in Yemen were fully functioning.

Almost 300 hospitals or clinics have been damaged or destroyed in fighting between forces loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi – who is backed by a Saudi-led multinational coalition – and those allied to the Houthi rebel movement.

Since fighting escalated in March 2015, more than 8,010 people – mostly civilians – have been killed and about 44,500 others injured, the UN says.

The civil war has also left 18.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. </s> A cholera outbreak in Yemen has killed at least 180 people since April 27, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday.

Two years into a war between Houthi rebels and government forces allied with a Saudi-led Arab military coalition, which has killed more than 8,000 people, Yemen has declared a state of emergency in the capital Sana'a over the outbreak.

Fighting has taken a toll on medical facilities in the war-torn country, as more than half of Yemen's facilities, which are now operated by Houthi rebels, no longer function.

The U.N. says some 17 million of Yemen's 26 million people lack sufficient food and at least three million malnourished children are in "grave peril."

U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Jamie McGoldrick and other international officials met with the health ministry in the Houthi-run capital of Sana'a, urging aid donors to assist to avoid an "unprecedented disaster."

Yemen, which is the Arab world's poorest nation, is now classified by the World Health Organization as a level three emergency, alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq.

Cholera is highly contagious and can be contracted from ingesting contaminated food and water. </s> WHO says more than 1,300 people have died and as many as 300,000 could become infected by the end of August.

Yemen is facing the "world's worst cholera outbreak", with about 1,310 people dying due to the disease since late April, according to the World Health Organization.

More than 200,000 suspected cases of cholera have been recorded in the Arabian Peninsula country and as many as 300,000 people could become infected by the end of August, Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general, said in a statement on Saturday.

"In just two months, cholera has spread to almost every governorate of this war-torn country," Chan and Anthony Lake, UNICEF executive director, said.

"Already more than 1,300 people have died - one quarter of them children - and the death toll is expected to rise."

READ MORE : WHO - Speed of Yemen cholera outbreak 'unprecedented'

Cholera is a highly contagious bacterial infection spread through contaminated food or water. It can be fatal within hours if left untreated.

Although the disease is easily treatable, doing so in Yemen, a country riven by conflict, has proved particularly difficult.

The UN has placed blame on all the rival sides and their international backers for the spread of cholera, which it calls a man-made humanitarian catastrophe.

"This is because of conflict, its man- made, its very severe, the numbers are absolutely staggering, its getting worse," Stephen O'Brien, a senior UN humanitarian affairs official, said.

"The cholera element in addition to all the lack of food, the lack of medical supplies is of course, primarily, one has to put that at the door of all parties to the conflict."

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its allies launched an air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and backing Yemen's UN-recognised government.

Two years of conflict have killed more than 10,000 people, wounded 45,000 others, and displaced more than 11 percent of the country's 26 million people.

On Friday, the humanitarian group Oxfam called for a ceasefire because of the outbreak, but the war shows no sign of letting up.

At the Sabeen hospital in the capital, Sanaa, two to three new patients arrive every minute, with many suffering from cholera.

READ MORE: Yemen cholera crisis - Disease kills 'one person per hour'

The outbreak began last year, but a second wave of the waterborne disease has spread even quicker in the last two months.

"We are receiving many patients from all over the country, and some are in bad condition," Ismail Mansouri, a physician, said.

"We are facing many obstacles. We lack many medical equipment, rehydration solutions and medicine."

The hospital does not have enough doctors and nurses, Mansouri said.

Those who are there have been working around the clock to deal with the crisis.

Because of the war, many Yemenis face difficulties accessing clean water.

A large number of patients also have difficulty reaching the closest medical facility.

Some patients had to travel for hours just to reach the Sabeen hospital.

The UN children's agency UNICEF also called for all sides of the conflict to allow aid agencies better access to those in need.

"The number of cases is increasing at a staggering rate," Najwa Mekki, UNICEF spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.

"It's critical that aid agencies and others are able to reach these children as soon as possible to provide them with the aid they need."

Meanwhile, Saudi's ministry of culture and information announced on Saturday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has donated $66.7m to the WHO and UNICEF to fight cholera in Yemen. </s> Authorities in Sanaa, which is controlled by Shiite rebels, have declared a state of emergency in the Yemeni capital, where a deadly outbreak of cholera has spread rapidly.

The Huthi-run health ministry said it was "unable to contain this disaster" and appealed for international humanitarian assistance to deal with the crisis, in a statement released overnight.

Yemen is witnessing a devastating war between the Iranian-backed Huthis and the Saudi-supported government, and less than half of the country's health facilities are functioning two years into the conflict.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday the cholera outbreak has killed 115 people and left 8,500 ill between April 27 and Saturday.

This is the second outbreak of cholera in less than a year in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country.

The World Health Organization now classifies Yemen as one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in the world alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, a cholera outbreak has since April 27 killed at least 115 people and left another 8,500 ill across Yemen.