Yemen could face ‘catastrophic’ food situation as pandemic worsens: FAO

REUTERS, 18TH MAY, 2020Yemen, already pushed to the brink of famine by a five-year war, could see a “catastrophic” food security situation due to the coronavirus pandemic and lower remittances from the Gulf, the U.N.’S Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Monday.

The conflict between a Saudi-led coalition and the Iranaligned Houthi movement has caused what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Some 80% of Yemen’s population are reliant on aid and millions face hunger.

“The health system was already under heavy stress and will now be overwhelmed if COVID-19 continues to spread and in addition it will affect the movement of people and the movement of goods,” Abdessalam Ould Ahmed, the FAO’S assistant director-general and regional representative for the Near East and North Africa, told Reuters.

“That situation could be really catastrophic if all the elements of worst case scenarios come to be but let’s hope not and the U.N. are working on avoiding that.”

Yemen, alongside Syria and Sudan, is one of the most vulnerable states in the Middle East in terms of food security.

Lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus are likely to impact humanitarian supply chains keeping a large part of the population fed, the U.N. agency said in a report on Monday.yemen has been mired in violence since the coalition intervened in 2015 against the Houthi group that ousted the Saudi-backed government in the capital, Sanaa, forcing it to rebase in the south.