UN seeks $2.1bn for millions in starvation
Only 15% of the funds needed have been raised for ‘the world’s largest hunger crisis’ as 17 million go without food
GENEVA // Yemen needs billions of dollars to avert famine and warring parties there must ensure that humanitarian aid can be delivered, said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres yesterday.
“Our humanitarian appeal for 2017 is US$2.1 billion (Dh7.7bn) and only 15 per cent has been met until the present moment,” he told a donor conference in Geneva.
“Yemen today is experiencing a tragedy of immense proportions. We are witnessing the starving and the crippling of an entire generation.”
By the end of the conference, $1.1bn had been pledged.
More than 10,000 civilians have died in Yemen’s war, which has pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.
About 17 million Yemenis, 60 per cent of the population, were going hungry, making it “the world’s largest hunger crisis”, said Mr Guterres.
Seven million of them do not know where their next meal is coming from and need immediate food aid.
Mr Guterres renewed a call for peace talks and urged all parties to “facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid by air, sea and land”.
“All infrastructure must remain open and operational,” he said. Aid groups want improved access to people in need, and a halt to air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition that is backing Yemen’s internationally- recognised government in its war against Houthi rebels.
The Iran-backed Shiite rebels seized Yemen’s capital and other areas in 2014, forcing the government of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi to flee.
Yemen imports 90 per cent of its food, 70 per cent of which passes through the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah, which is held by the Houthi militias and their allies, forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The coalition, which includes mostly Arab Sunni countries, has urged the UNto put Hodeidah under its supervision to help the flow of humanitarian supplies to Yemen and to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the Houthis at the port. Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr, Yemen’s prime minister, said his government would allow access for aid supplies.
“We are ready to open new corridors for this aid,” he said.
Initial pledges announced at the conference yesterday included $150 million from Saudi Arabia, $100m from Kuwait, €50m (Dh200.8m) from Germany and $94m from the United States. The World Food Programme has committed $1bn to Yemen and reached a record 5 million Yemenis last month with rations. But it needed to increase aid deliveries to 9 million people, including 3 million malnourished children, who were deemed “severely food insecure”, said the programme’s regional director, Muhannad Hadi.
“If the international community does not move right now, and if programme does not get the right funding and support to address all needs, I think the cost of that will be real famine that will shame us in coming months and weeks,” said Mr Hadi.