Many of the 32 million inhabitants are starving. After seven years of war and the collapse of the economy, the situation is devastating, said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths. Hollywood star Jolie is an ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She recently visited Yemen.
Need grows
The United Nations fear that Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine will push other crises into the background. So far, there has been no sign of governments diverting money, but Yemen’s money is running out, Griffiths said. A previous call for donations was only 0.4 percent covered until mid-March. “I’m afraid it will be a death sentence for people if we don’t fill the donation hole,” said the UN expert. In 2021, a good 2.2 billion euros were raised for Yemen.
According to the UN, the situation in Yemen and other crisis areas will worsen as a result of the Ukraine war. The country imports a third of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Rising prices made it even more difficult for people there to feed themselves. Food prices would have almost doubled by 2021.
War claims hundreds of thousands of lives
A civil war has been raging in Yemen since 2015. A Saudi-led military alliance is fighting alongside the government against the Iran-backed Shia Houthi rebels who overran the capital Sanaa and occupied key facilities in 2014. According to estimates, more than 370,000 people lost their lives in the conflict, and millions are displaced within their own country. Peace efforts have failed for years.
According to the UN, a good 23 million of the 32 million inhabitants are dependent on help. 20 million of them were already living in extreme poverty in 2021 – so they had to get by on less than 1.70 euros per person per day. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has just reported that 2.2 million children are severely malnourished and half a million are in a life-threatening condition. Only half of the health facilities work. Every two hours a woman dies from complications during childbirth.