Author’s purpose:
One of the main author’s purposes for writing this article is to shed light on the fact that children are starving to the point of dying in Yemen and many other developing countries.
Another purpose is to point out the fact that although these developing countries have strayed away from casualties due to COVID-19, they are still struggling insufferably due to other diseases such as malaria, AIDS, polio, and along with Vitamin A deficiency. The pandemic may not have hurt them physically but it has hurt them even more economically and agriculturally.
The author also points out that famines seem to be getting worse as time goes by, even if there was a relief within a couple of years for 2020.
Solution; Greater efforts to distribute the vaccine globally, debt relief and assistance from wealthy countries
Appeals used:
Pathos
Logos
Ethos
Rhetorical Strategies
Anecdotal Evidence
Pictures
Second Person point of view
Using quotes from a credible source
Quotes:
“Starvation is agonizing and degrading. You lose control of your bowels. Your skin peels off, your hair falls out, you hallucinate and you may go blind from lack of vitamin A. While you waste away, your body cannibalizes itself: It consumes its own muscles, even the heart.” (2nd Person point of view)
“Yet Abdo Sayid, a 4-year-old boy so emaciated he weighed just 14 pounds, wasn’t crying when he was brought to a hospital recently in Aden, Yemen.” (Anecdotal Evidence)
“An expert panel crunched the numbers and estimated that under even a “moderate” scenario of what lies ahead, an additional 168,000 children will die frompalnutrition because of the consequences of the coronavirus. Think about that: Abdo times 168,000.” (Both Pathos and Logos)
“The magnitude of the problem is an outrage, but it is even more outrageous that there are powerful, proven solutions that are not being delivered at scale,” said Shawn Baker, the chief nutritionist at the U.S. Agency for International Development.” (Ethos)
“His photographs, including those with this column, are painful to witness, but many families, including Abdo’s, allow photography — indeed, want photos to be circulated — because they hope that the world will understand that children are dying needlessly of hunger, and that help is desperately needed to avert more child deaths. (Anecdotal Evidence)
“The magnitude of the problem is an outrage, but it is even more outrageous that there are powerful, proven solutions that are not being delivered at scale,” said Shawn Baker, the chief nutritionist at the U.S. Agency for International Development.” (Ethos)
“Yemen’s suffering is complicated. Always poor, the country has been shattered by a war and blockade by Saudi Arabia, with backing from the United States under both the Obama and Trump administrations. (Obama officials have acknowledged, not as candidly as they should, that this was a mistake.) Misrule by the Houthi faction, backed by Iran, has compounded the suffering, as have both cholera and the coronavirus — and donor countries are focused on their own problems and averting their eyes.” (Background Information)