The United Nations has said it hopes to raise $3.85bn to prevent large-scale famine in Yemen, warning that life in the war-ravaged nation was unbearable, with children enduring a “special kind of hell”.
More than 100 governments and donors will take part in a virtual donor conference on Monday – co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland – as Yemen’s Houthi rebels push to seize the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s last northern stronghold of Marib.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions pushed to the brink of famine since a Saudi-led coalition intervened militarily in March 2015 in support of Hadi’s internationally recognised government, which had been unseated by the Houthis.
But with aid funding dropping in 2020 amid the coronavirus downturn, resulting in the closure of many humanitarian programmes, the situation in the country has become even worse.
The UN, which has described the situation in Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and its partners received $1.9bn last year – about half of what was required.
It called on Monday for “immediate funding” to support 16 million people in Yemen, where some two-thirds of the population is in need of some form of aid to survive.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the outcome of Monday's high-level pledging conference for Yemen is disappointing.
ReplyDeletePledges announced a total of about 1.7 billion U.S. dollars -- less than last year's pledges and 1 billion dollars less than what was pledged at the conference in 2019, said Guterres in a statement.
"Millions of Yemeni children, women and men desperately need aid to live. Cutting aid is a death sentence," he said. "The best that can be said about today is that it represents a down payment. I thank those who did pledge generously, and I ask others to consider again what they can do to help stave off the worst famine the world has seen in decades."
At the pledging conference, Guterres asked for 3.85 billion dollars for humanitarian operations in Yemen for 2021...