UN seeks $4B to prevent famine in Yemen

THE UNITED Nations said it hopes to raise $3.85 billion yesterday to prevent large-scale famine in Yemen, warning that life in the war-ravaged nation was unbearable, with children enduring a “special kind of hell.”

More than 100 governments and donors will take part in a virtual donor conference – cohosted by Sweden and Switzerland – as Yemen’s Houthi rebels push to seize the government’s last northern stronghold.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions pushed to the brink of famine in the six-year-old conflict, which the U.N. describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. But with aid funding dropping in 2020 amid the coronavirus downturn, resulting in the closure of many humanitarian programs, the situation in the country has become even direr.

The U.N. and its partners last year received $1.9 billion – about half of what was required. It called Monday for “immediate funding” to support 16 million people in Yemen, where some two-thirds of the population is in need of some form of aid to survive. “For most people, life in Yemen is now unbearable. Childhood in Yemen is a special kind of hell,” said U.N. SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres. “We must end it now and start dealing with its enormous consequences immediately,” he said in a statement.

The U.N. is seeking to raise $3.85 billion from donors, including wealthy Gulf nations, after falling $1.5 billion short of the required $3.4 billion last year. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) pledged on Friday to give $230 million. According to the latest U.N. data, more than 16 million Yemenis – about half the 29-million population – will face hunger this year, and nearly 50,000 are already starving to death in famine-like conditions. It warned that 400,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 could die from acute malnutrition.

The U.N. said in September that critical aid had been cut at 300 health centers across Yemen due to lack of funding, with more than a third of its major humanitarian programs in the country either reduced or shut down entirely.