UN Warns As Eight Million Yemenis Could Lose Humanitarian Aid

UN special envoy Hans Grundberg and UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that January has seen nearly two-thirds of major UN aid programmes being scaled back or closed, while combat zones have multiplied.

Yemen has been at war since 2014, after Saudi Arabia and a number of its allied states launched a devastating war on its southern neighbor in March 2015 with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western countries.

The aim was to return to power the former Riyadh-backed regime and crush the popular Ansarullah movement which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

The war has stopped well shy of all of its goals, despite killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and turning entire Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Yemeni army and its allied fighters from the Popular Committees have in recent months gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in Yemen.

Grundberg said a coalition air raid on a detention facility in Sa’ada last month “was the worst civilian casualty incident in three years”, as he pointed at an “alarming” increase in air raids in Yemen, including on residential areas in Sana’a and the port area of Hudaydah, according to Al Jazeera.

Grundberg warned that serious efforts by the international community are urgently needed before “this conflict risks spiralling out of control”.

More than 650 civilians were killed or injured in January by Saudi-led air raids as well as shelling, small arms fire and other violence, “by far the highest toll in at least three years”, according to UN figures.

The UN has long warned that the war in Yemen has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, but Griffiths cautioned that “aid agencies are quickly running out of money, forcing them to slash life-saving programmes”.

According to the UN humanitarian office, the 2021 humanitarian plan for Yemen received $2.27bn of its $3.85bn requirement, the lowest funding level since 2015. The 2022 plan has not been released.

The UN’s World Food Program was forced to reduced food rations for eight million people in December and starting in March “those eight million people may get no food at all – or just a reduced ration,” Griffiths said.

Meanwhile, the UN may also have to cancel most humanitarian flights in Yemen next month, it said.

Funding shortages could also deprive 3.6 million people of safe drinking water and end programmes to combat gender-based violence and promote reproductive health.

Griffiths called the scale of the current funding gaps in Yemen “unprecedented”, saying the UN has never before contemplated not giving millions of hungry people food or suspending humanitarian flights.

Sweden and Switzerland are scheduled to co-host a high-level pledging event for Yemen with the United Nations on March 16.