From the Website of United Nations
links: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56143#.WKCwieJNzIU
Yemen: As food crisis worsens, UN agencies call for urgent assistance to avert catastrophe
Around 200 displaced families live in an informal settlement in Dharwan, Yemen. Here, a 12-year old girl keeps watch over her younger brothers. Photo: UNHCR/Mohammed Hamoud
10 February 2017 – The number of food insecure people in Yemen has risen by three million in seven months, with an estimated 17.1 million people – more than two-thirds of the entire population of 27.4 million – now struggling to feed themselves, according to a joint assessment by three United Nations agencies.
“The speed at which the situation is deteriorating and the huge jump in food insecure people is extremely worrying,” said the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Representative in Yemen, Salah Hajj Hassan, in a news release.
“Bearing in mind that agriculture is the main source of livelihood for the majority of the population, FAO is urgently calling for funds to scale up its agricultural livelihoods support to farmers, herders and fishing communities to improve their access to food in 2017 and prevent the dire food and livelihood security situation from deteriorating further,” he added.
Of the 17.1 million food-insecure people, about 7.3 million are considered to be in need of emergency food assistance, according to the preliminary results of the Emergency Food Security and Nutrition Assessment, which attributed the rapid deterioration of the conditions to the ongoing conflict.
The UN and humanitarian partners has recently launched an international appeal for $2.1 billion to provide life-saving assistance to 12 million people in Yemen in 2017 – the largest-ever humanitarian response plan for the war-torn country.
The joint assessment was conducted by FAO, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) in cooperation with the authorities in Yemen. It is the first national, household-level survey conducted in the country since the escalation of the conflict in mid-March 2015.
Even if they survive, these children risk not fulfilling their developmental potentials
Rates of acute malnutrition were found to have passed the “critical” threshold in four governorates, while agricultural production is falling across the country.
“We are witnessing some of the highest numbers of malnutrition amongst children in Yemen in recent times,” said UNICEF's Country Representative, Meritxell Relano.
She warned that children who are severely and acutely malnourished are 11 times more at risk of death as compared to their healthy peers, if not treated on time.
“Even if they survive, these children risk not fulfilling their developmental potentials, posing a serious threat to an entire generation in Yemen and keeping the country mired in the vicious cycle of poverty and under development,” she said.
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