UN Aid Drive to Avert Yemen Catastrophe Falls Two Third Short

The United Nations voiced disappointment after a pledging conference raised less than a third of the money it said was needed to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in war-torn Yemen.

The UN was seeking $4.27bn to help 17.3 million people – but raised only $1.3bn at Wednesday’s conference in Geneva, with some major hoped-for donors not pledging any funds.

The UN considers war-torn Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian disaster and Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that it must not be overshadowed by the Ukraine crisis.

Nonetheless, the money raised fell far short of what was needed, leaving organizers considering a second conference later this year.

“We heard 36 donors pledge nearly $1.3bn for the humanitarian response,” the UN’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in closing the conference in Geneva.

“But let us be under no illusions: We hoped for more. And it is a disappointment that we weren’t able, as yet, to get pledges from some we thought we might hear from.”

“We will be working hard to make sure that … we do stand in solidarity with the people of Yemen.”

Out of 31.9 million people in Yemen, 23.4 million are in need of humanitarian assistance, of which 12.9 million are in acute need, the UN has said.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies, backed by the United States and European powers, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah resistance movement.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly and indirectly in the war, and millions have been displaced.

“Yemen may have receded from the headlines, but the human suffering has not relented,” Guterres said, opening the conference. “A funding crunch risks catastrophe.”

Guterres said the country was in ruins and the economy in despair, while millions were now facing extreme hunger, and two in three Yemenis were living in extreme poverty.

“As a matter of moral responsibility, of human decency and compassion, of international solidarity, and of life and death – we must support the people of Yemen now,” said Guterres.

Russia’s war in Ukraine is likely to have a negative effect on Yemen, given that the country depends almost entirely on food imports, with nearly a third of its wheat supplies coming from Ukraine.

A prolonged conflict in Ukraine is therefore likely to make it harder for Yemenis to meet their basic needs, as food prices, especially the cost of grain, are expected to increase.

The UN’s World Food Program said the number of people needing food assistance had increased by 1.2 million during the past year to 17.4 million – and is forecast to reach 19 million people in the second half of 2022.

“It’s absolutely devastating, and now we’re out of money,” WFP executive director David Beasley told the conference. “We need a billion dollars for the next six months and we have just a little over 10 percent of that.”

The number of people “knocking on famine’s door” will rise from more than five million to more than seven million, he said.

“Don’t make us make decisions between taking food from the children in Ukraine to the children in Yemen,” he pleaded.

The conference was co-hosted by Switzerland and Sweden.