UN urges world not to forget 19 million hungry people in Yemen

The United Nations’ Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (UN) stressed that Yemen is suffering “one of the most serious humanitarian disasters in the world”, as 19 million people in this country lack food. .

Addressing the UN Security Council, Mr Griffiths described Yemen as falling into what humanitarian officials call a “chronic state of emergency”. The proportion of the population in need of help in the world’s poorest Arab country is 75%, equivalent to 23.4 million people.

On the evening of March 15, a high-level conference was held online under the chair of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis and Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde. This conference was organized to call for $ 4.3 billion in funding to help more than 17 million Yemenis this year.

Mr. Griffiths said the conference was not only about money, but also an opportunity for the international community to show that we are not abandoning Yemen, after all these years of crisis after crisis.

The authorities also added that aid agencies are facing “an unprecedented and alarming shortage of funding,” with two-thirds of major UN programs having to scale back or shut down in the coming months. recently due to lack of money.

Yemen has been in turmoil due to a civil war that began in 2014. Houthi forces have taken control of the capital and much of the northern territory, forcing the government to flee south and into Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition sent troops to Yemen to intervene in March 2015, with the backing of the United States and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The campaign fell into a stalemate for years, triggering a severe humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

In 2021, Deputy Secretary-General Griffiths said that over 2,500 Yemeni civilians were killed in the conflict, and nearly 300,000 were displaced. Since 2015, 4.3 million people have lost their homes.

“We must address the humanitarian crisis in Yemen immediately. Otherwise, the road to peace will narrow.” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses the Security Council.

Since 2015, donor countries have spent nearly $14 billion in response to UN calls to alleviate the poverty of the Yemeni people, said Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen. More than 75% of that amount comes from six countries including the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK, Germany and the European Commission.

According to Grundberg, continued fighting has made Yemen’s economic crisis worse. He pointed out that the value of the Yemeni riyal against the dollar has fallen by 20% since January 2022.

For his part, Grundberg shared that he will continue to meet with the leaders of political parties in Yemen, experts to determine short-term and long-term priorities for a multi-dimensional process, thereby opening up new opportunities. negotiations to find an end to the war.