YEMEN (Transatlantic Today) – Unless immediate funding is supplied, 8 million Yemen citizens would probably lose all humanitarian supplies in March, according to UN officials, amid an intensification in a long-running conflict that resulted in the greatest toll of civilian fatalities in 3 years last month.
Nearly two-thirds of significant UN aid programs were downsized or forced to close in January, according to UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths and UN special envoy Hans Grundberg, who spoke to the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
Yemen has been in conflict since 2014, when Houthi rebels seized control of most of the country’s north, especially Sanaa, prompting the president to evacuate to the south and subsequently to Saudi Arabia. In March 2015, a Saudi-led military alliance, supported by the US, entered the conflict with the goal of returning President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to office.
The biggest civilian casualty occurrence in three years, according to Grundberg, was a coalition airstrike on a detention center in Houthi-controlled Saada last month, as he referred to an alarming spike in aerial bombardment in Yemen, particularly the port district of Hodeidah and residential neighborhoods in Sanaa.
However, recent Houthi strikes on the UAE and Saudi Arabia, a fellow alliance member, show how the war risks spiraling out of control unless substantial efforts are made promptly by Yemeni parties, the region, and the global community to resolve it, according to Grundberg.
According to UN estimates, more than 650 people have been killed or wounded in January by enemy fire, bombing, air attacks, and other forms of violence, the biggest toll in at 3 years.
According to Al Jazeera, the UN has repeatedly warned that Yemen’s conflict has generated the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster, but Griffiths warned that relief groups are swiftly bleeding money, forcing them to cut life-saving programs.
According to the UN humanitarian agency, the humanitarian plan for Yemen in 2021 got $2.27 billion out of a total of $3.85 billion, the lowest amount of funding since 2015. The strategy for 2022 has yet to be revealed.
In December, the UN’s World Food Program was obliged to cut food parcels for 8 million people, and coming March, “those 8 million people may get no food at all – or a reduced ration,” according to Griffiths.
Meanwhile, the UN has warned that most humanitarian shipments to Yemen may have to be canceled next month.
3.6 million people might be deprived of clean drinking water as a result of funding shortfalls, as well as programs to prevent gender-based abuse and improve reproductive health.
The severity of the present funding deficits in Yemen is “unprecedented,” according to Griffiths, who claims the UN has never considered not feeding millions of starving people or canceling humanitarian flights before.
On March 16, Switzerland and Sweden will co-host a high-level pledge session for Yemen with the United Nations.
