UN: Yemen food crisis is man-made, partly as a war tactic

The crisis in Yemen that has left millions hungry and on the brink of famine is “a manmade disaster” driven not only by decades of poverty and lack of investment but also by economic strangulation being used as a tactic of war, the U.N. development chief in the country said Tuesday.

Auke Lootsma said “there is no end in sight” to Yemen’s civil war and about 70 per cent of the country’s 27 million people need humanitarian aid, 60 per cent don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and nearly 7 million “are close to slipping into a state of famine.”

In addition, he said, the U.N. has recorded almost 400,000 cases of cholera and nearly 1,900 related deaths in the past four months — and in the last two weeks there has been a meningitis outbreak.

Lootsma told U.N. reporters by video conference from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, that nearly 2 million children are considered “acutely malnourished,” which makes them susceptible to cholera — and cholera creates more malnutrition.

Yemen, which is on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has been engulfed in civil war since September 2014, when Houthi Shiite rebels swept into Sanaa and overthrew President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s internationally recognized government.

Lootsma said the food crisis is mainly driven by the impact of increased food prices, and especially the reduction in purchasing power of Yemenis, many who were living in poverty before the conflict began.