NEW YORK (Dispatches) – Some 2.6 million displaced people in Yemen are facing shortages in food supplies due to the Saudi-led war, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says.
“Our cash assistance helps families meet their food needs,” UNHCR said on Twitter.
The UN organization pointed out that it was able to help feed more than 300,000 Yemenis through the Qatari “Al-Thani Humanitarian Fund.”
The Thani Bin Abdullah Bin Thani Al-Thani Humanitarian Fund was established in April 2019. It has disbursed more than $35 million in support of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and displaced Yemenis in the form of Zakat through UNHCR.
Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against Yemenis in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, and resulted in what the UN has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Some 3.3 million people have been displaced from their homes and 24 million, or more than 80 percent of the population, are in need of aid, according to the UN.
The UNHCR warning comes days after the UN children’s agency said the protracted war in Yemen has killed or maimed at least 10,000 children since the conflict began in March 2015, which is equivalent to four children every day.
James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said last Tuesday these are the cases verified by the agency, while the actual toll could be much higher.
Elder, who recently returned from his visit to Yemen, said he met scores of people affected by the six-year war, warning that the country was “on the brink of total collapse.” He said Yemen’s humanitarian crisis represents a “tragic convergence of four threats,” including violent and protracted conflict, economic devastation, shattered services for support systems and a critically under-funded UN response.