Almost 19 million people in Yemen are in need of humanitarian assistance after years of violent conflict and “deliberate war tactics” to accelerate the collapse of key institutions and the country’s economy, according to the UN.
Launching an unprecedented international appeal for $US2.1 billion to provide assistance to some 12 million people in Yemen this week, the UN said that some 18.8 million people – more than two-thirds of the country’s population – were in need of humanitarian assistance with an estimated 10.3 million people “acutely affected” – meaning they need immediate humanitarian assistance to save and sustain their lives – and almost 3.3 million people, including 2.1 million children, acutely malnourished.
Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said that without international assistance, millions of men, women and children “may face the threat of famine” in 2017.
“Humanitarian partners are ready to respond,” he said. “But they need timely, unimpeded access, and adequate resources, to meet the humanitarian needs wherever they arise.”
The UN said a “vast protection crisis” has been created in Yemen since conflict broke out in March, 2015, leaving millions of people facing “threats to their safety and basic human rights every day”. “Deliberate war tactics are accelerating the collapse of key institutions and the economy, thereby exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.
The civil war – between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and a Saudi Arabian-led mainly Arab coalition seeking to restore the country’s internationally recognised government – has killed at least 10,000 people. UNICEF said last week that an estimated 63,000 children died of preventable causes in the country last year.
