Yemen needy get critical cash injection

MORE THAN 22.2M PEOPLE IN NEED OF ASSISTANCE IN WAR-TORN COUNTRY

The UN agency for children says it has distributed cash to nearly 1.5 million families in war-battered Yemen to help avert the risk of famine.

The emergency payout, part of a $200 million World Bank-funded programme, comes in the fourth year of a civil war that has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced more than 3 million and crippled the country’s infrastructure.

The UN considers Yemen to be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22.2 million people in need of assistance.

Geert Cappelaere, the regional director of Unicef, said yesterday that the money reached an estimated 9 million people and allowed families to buy food and medicine for their children, many of them malnourished.

It’s the second of three planned payments, with the next round set for August.

In March, Saudi Arabia and the UAE gave $930 million to UN humanitarian efforts in Yemen as the war between a Saudi-led military coalition and Yemen’s Iran-backed Al Houthi militants entered its fourth year.

The aid covered nearly a third of the amount the UN is seeking for Yemen humanitarian aid this year.

Al Houthis and their allies seized Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, in September 2014.

The war began six months later, with the coalition backing Yemen’s internationallyrecognised government.

The US provides logistical support and weaponry to the Saudi-led coalition.

Over 10,000 people have been killed. Western countries and UN researchers have accused Iran of supplying arms to the Al Houthis.

There is a growing body of evidence to support the claim.