UN calls for $2.1bn to fight famine in Yemen

Aid chiefs says 12 million face starvation this year as war and rebellion threaten Gulf state’s people with ‘catastrophe’

The United Nations yesterday appealed for US$2.1 billion ( Dh7.7bn) to provide food and other life-saving assistance to 12 million people in Yemen who face the threat of famine.

“Two years of war have devastated Yemen and millions of children, women and men need our help,” said UN humanitarian aid chief Stephen O’Brien.

“Without international support, they may face the threat of famine in the course of 2017, and I urge donors to sustain and increase their support.”

The appeal from UN agencies and other humanitarian organisations aims to gather funds to help about 12 million people across Yemen this year. Last year’s appeal for $1.6bn was 60 per cent funded, and 5.6 million people were reached.

More than two-thirds of the population – 19 million Yemenis – need some form of assistance, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. About 10 million of those are “acutely affected”, requiring food, water, health care and protection to sustain and save lives, it said. Yemen has been divided by civil war since the Iran-allied Houthi rebels seized power in the capital Sanaa in 2014. The Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia entered the conflict in March 2015 to reinstate the internationally-recognised president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi after he fled Sanaa from the Houthis, who are fighting in an alliance with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“The situation in Yemen is catastrophic and rapidly deteriorating,” said Jamie McGoldrick, the head of OCHA.

“Nearly 3.3 million people, including 2.1 million children, are acutely malnourished.”

Mr McGoldrick said the agency has been able to reach all of Yemen’s 22 governorates, and about 80 per cent of the territory, stressing that funding is generally a more pressing need than access.

An estimated 63,000 Yemeni children died last year of preventable causes often linked to malnutrition, the UN Children’s Fund said last week.

Some 10,000 civilians have been killed in the conflict, according to UN numbers.

“Ongoing air strikes and fighting continue to inflict heavy casualties, damage public and private infrastructure, and impede delivery of humanitarian assistance,” the UN said. “The Yemeni economy is being wilfully destroyed,” it added, saying ports, roads, bridges and factories have been hit.