New chapter for Yemen as Houthis accept system to counter aid theft

The head of the UN’s World Food Programme said Yemen’s Houthi rebels had at last agreed to roll out a long-delayed initiative to deliver food directly to Yemeni families and prevent it falling into the hands of militants.

David Beasley said the biometric system would help ensure 150,000 Yemenis in Houthi-run areas could eat and that the aid intended for them would not be diverted elsewhere.

Should the scheme succeed, it could be expanded to include $500 million in cash transfers to struggling Yemenis next year – a liquidity boost that could prop up the country’s war-ravaged economy and tumbling riyal, Mr Beasley said.

“On Sunday, we finally got the Ansar Allah authorities to come forward on the biometric registration of beneficiaries in Sanaa city,” Mr Beasley told a UN Security Council meeting, using the official name of the Houthi movement.

“This is a pilot project of 150,000 beneficiaries and I like to think this is a major step forward, a new chapter of co-operation between all the parties in Yemen, and one which will allow us to scale up and roll out biometric registration in Ansar Allah areas as quickly as possible to give the donors the confidence to provide fresh funds.”

The Iran- aligned Houthis took over the capital Sanaa and other important cities in 2014 after ousting the Saudi-backed government of President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi. The ensuing war led to what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The WFP’s biometric system scans irises, fingerprints or faces to ensure that aid goes to those in need. It is already used in areas run by Yemen’s UN-recognised government.

In April, the WFP halved aid to Yemenis living in Houthi-run areas after donors cut funding over fears that humanitarian supplies had been diverted through a local partner linked to Houthi officials.

Mr Beasley said the Houthis had presented “unnecessary obstructions” to implementing the biometric scheme and dragged out talks over “countless days, weeks and months”.

“The last thing we need are these kinds of games,” he said.

Sounding a warning of a “countdown to a catastrophe in Yemen”, Mr Beasely said donors could now have faith in the biometric system and other improvements in Houthi-run areas, and stump up $1.9 billion for aid work in Arabia’s poorest nation.

“If we choose to look away, there’s no doubt in my mind that Yemen will be plunged into a devastating famine within a few short months,” he said.

Last month, the WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Houthis’ removal of Mr Hadi’s government from Sanaa prompted military intervention in 2015 by an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia. Fighting has left about 24.3 million people, about four fifths of Yemen’s population, in need of aid.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday blasted the Houthis for oppressing the shrinking Jewish community of Sanaa and called for the release from prison of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, a Yemeni Jew.

“Mr Marhabi has been wrongfully detained by the Houthi militia for four years,” Mr Pompeo said.

“His health continues to deteriorate as he languishes in a Sanaa prison, where the threat of contracting Covid-19 is a real possibility.”