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UN food agency warns of imminent famine in Yemen

A Yemeni woman sits with children inside a tent at a slum following their displacement from their homes due to the ongoing military aggression by Saudi Arabia, in the country’s third-largest city of Ta’izz, on September 12, 2015. ©AFP

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has expressed concern over growing food insecurity in war-torn Yemen, saying about half of the Arab nation is on the brink of famine.

 “… with half the country now just one step away from famine, we need the international community to really come behind us and support us, particularly over the next few months,” said WFP Deputy Regional Director Matthew Hollingworth on Friday.

Hollingworth, who was speaking in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, added that security concerns amid violence across Yemen have turned the country into “one of the hardest place in the world today to work” in.

He said the WFP plans to reach around three million people in December, saying, however, that fighting, damage to infrastructure and insecurity are major impediments for such humanitarian objectives to be realized.

Yemeni children receive free food donated by Yemeni volunteers in Sana’a on June 26, 2015. ©AP

Since late March, Yemen has been suffering a brutal military campaign by Saudi Arabia. The attacks, which lack a UN mandate, has killed more than 7,500 people and displaced millions, according to Yemeni sources.

The aggression has also inflicted huge damage on Yemen’s civilian infrastructures, disrupting the delivery of relief aid by international agencies to Yemeni people.

The 2016 Humanitarian Needs Overview said in a report on Yemen in November that 14.4 million people of the country’s 23 million are food insecure. It said 7.6 million of the figure include people in desperate need of food assistance. 

The WFP also says 10 out of Yemen’s 22 provinces are now classified as facing food insecurity at the “emergency” level.


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