Yemen: End of humanitarian aid in March

UN officials said on Tuesday that Yemen's seven-year war had escalated so dangerously in recent months that the death toll rose since last three-year high in January and that eight million Yemenis have not access to humanitarian aid in next month. 

UN Special Representative for Yemen Hans Grandberg and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffith provided a picture of the deteriorating situation in the Arab world.

The war-torn areas in Yemen expanded several times over the past month, and by the end of January, two-thirds of UN aid programs had been suspended.

Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since 2014, when Houthi rebels seized the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and large areas of the north.

About a year later, a Saudi-led military coalition, backed by the United States and the United Arab Emirates, went to war with the Iranian-backed Houthis. Riyadh aimed to bring Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi back to power.

 UN Security Council warned that recent Houthi attacks on the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia show how the conflict could escalate unless urgent action is taken by the  international community to end it. 

Arab Coalition airstrikes on the Houthi-held Saada detention center "marked the worst civilian casualties in three years." The UN official also warned of an increase in airstrikes in Yemen, including residential areas in Sanaa and the port of Hodeidah.

Bombings and small arms shootings in January left more than 650 dead and wounded, the highest number in at least three years.

Aid budgets were running out of money, forcing humanitarian aid organizations to suspend their programs, so that the UN World Food Program cut food rations for eight million people and they will probably not receive any more food in March.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), its 2021 aid program to Yemen required $ 3.85 billion, but only $ 2.27 have been provided, and it is the lowest level budget since 2015. The 2022 program has not been published yet.

 

_{Source and Credit: UN news, WFP}