Yemen on the brink of famine
GENEVA // Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is set to worsen as civil war has ruined the economy and is preventing food supplies from getting to the needy, driving the country to the brink of famine, a leading United Nations aid official said.
“Throughout the whole of this, country kids are dying,” said Jamie McGoldrick, UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen.
Nearly two years of war between the government and the Iran-allied Houthi rebels have left more than half of Yemen’s 28 million people “food inse- cure”, with seven million of them enduring hunger, the UN claimed.
In the latest setback, Yemen’s biggest traders have stopped wheat imports because of a crisis at the central bank.
Already, 8 out of 10 children are stunted by malnutrition and every 10 minutes a child dies of preventable diseases, UN agency figures show.
Several families often rely on one salary- earner, and child marriage is increasing, with girls married off at the age of 15 on average, and often younger.
The UN said that 18.8 million people need some form of humanitarian aid but it struggled to deliver supplies, partly because of the war and partly due to a lack of funding. The disruption of wheat shipments will make the problem worse.
Almost half of Yemen’s 22 governorates are rated as being in an emergency food situation, Mr McGoldrick said. That is four on a five-point scale, where five is famine.
“I know there are worrying developments, and the deterioration we’ve seen in the economy and the health services and the ability to supply food would only give us an estimate that things are going to get much worse.” The UN has been conducting a food assessment for a humanitarian appeal next year, when it will ask donors for life-saving help for 8 million people.
Famine means more than two people dying a day for every 10,000 in the population, or about 5,500 deaths per day across a country of Yemen’s size.
The emergency across much of Yemen means one to two deaths per 10,000, suggesting thousands may die every day.