Uncertainty surrounds Yemen as food crisis worsens
The World Food Programme (WFP) has said there “very well could be” famine in remote areas of Yemen where the UN’s food agency does not have access, painting a bleak picture of the hunger crisis gripping the country, Aljazeera has reported.
“Yemen is a disaster and I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel right now,” WFP’s Executive Director David Beasley told reporters at a closed briefing during the UN General Assembly in New York City on Thursday.
The WFP has warned that Yemen is on the brink of a full-blown famine, with 18 million of its 29 million population food insecure, 8.4 million severely so.
The country’s civil war further worsened in the wake of Saudi-led military intervention in 2015, which has ravaged the country’s economy and caused the Yemeni riyal to collapse, depreciating 180 percent.
The cost of food has increased by 35 percent in the last 12 months and if trends continue the riyal will reach an exchange rate of 1,000 to the US dollar, putting 12 million at risk of starvation, UN officials have warned.
“Yemen is undeniably the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by far,” said Beasley.
The three-and-a-half-year-long civil war has ravaged the country’s economy [Khaled Abdullah/Reuters]
Access into the country, controlled by the Saudi-led coalition, has “substantially improved” in the past year, but denial of access within Yemen remains the major obstacle to fighting hunger and disease, especially in areas controlled by Houthis, he added.
“If we don’t have access then we can’t monitor [and] draw necessary conclusions. We have to assume the worst,” he added.
