FAO: Five Million Yemenis ‘One Step Away from Famine’ in 2021

FAO said in a brief statement posted on its official Twitter account on Sunday that more than half of Yemen's overall population could head further into hunger in 2021.

An estimated 50,000 people will be living in famine-like conditions in the war-ravaged Arab country during 2021, the statement added.

Immediate support is urgently needed to save Yemen as "UN response remains only 49 percent funded," FAO noted.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched their devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in order to bring former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, back to power and crush the Ansarullah revolutionary movement.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (CLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past five years.

Riyadh and its allies have widely been criticized for the high civilian death toll as a result of their bombing campaign in Yemen.

The UN refers to the situation in Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.