Yemen near famine as UN funds are cut

Due to a lack of United Nations (UN) funds, Yemen is currently on the verge of experiencing famine. A famine is declared when 30% of the population of a given area is facing acute malnutrition, 20% of its households are suffering from extreme food shortage and, when the daily death rate exceeds two people per 10.000 inhabitants (UN News, 2011). Approximately, 16 million people, half of the population of Yemen, are experiencing a lack of food, while 50.000 people are already starving in famine-like conditions (McKernan, 2021; UN News, 2021).

Nearly 2.3 million Yemeni children under age 5 are at risk of being acutely malnourished in 2021 (OCHA, 2021). Lack of food in the first years of age is known to irreversibly damage children’s cognitive and physical development. Starving infants are more likely to be vulnerable to illnesses such as diphtheria, cholera, and measles. Yemeni health facilities are currently sending away children in need because of a widespread lack of medicine and equipment. Nearly 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are likely to face acute malnutrition in 2021 causing irreversible consequences to their babies (UNICEF, 2021; UN News, 2021).

The UN has been trying to warn about the catastrophic food crisis in Yemen since July 2020, but the situation is getting worse (UN News, 2020c). World Food Program (WFP) Director of Emergencies, Margot van der Velden, stated during a press conference in November 2020: “When we declare a famine, it means many lives have already been lost. If we wait to find that out for sure, people are already dead” (UN News, 2020a).

Despite the urgency, the UN was unable to raise enough funds for Yemen’s catastrophic situation and the food rations have recently been halved due to lack of funding (Gladstone, 2020). During a virtual pledging on the first of March, the UN tried to raise $3.85 billion but received only $1.7 billion, less than half of the amount needed. The UK government has also cut its funding by, approximately, 50% (McKernan, 2021), donating about £87million, a small number compared to the £164 million devoted to this cause in 2020 (McKernan & Wintour, 2021). The UN chief, António Guterres said: “The risk of large-scale famine has never been more acute” (UN News, 2021).

Yemen is the poorest Arab country in the world, with roughly 80% of its population living under the line of poverty (Gladstone, 2020; FAO, 2021). The country has been at war since 2014, when the Houthi rebel forces took control of the capital, forcing the UN-recognized government to escape to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi- and Emirati-led campaign to remove the Houthi rebel forces, backed by Iran, has been heavily criticized for unnecessary acts of violence on civilian infrastructures. The Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition blockade of Yemenis borders has been the main cause of the widespread poverty and starvation in Yemen in the last years (McKernan and Wintour, 2021).

Another factor responsible for Yemen’s food crisis can be found in the Coronavirus pandemic, which has not only aggravated the situation in the Yemeni health care facilities, that were already struggling prior to the pandemic, but has also led to a decrease in humanitarian funds (UN News, 2021; UNICEF, 2021). These, among other factors, has caused Yemen’s currency to undergo a massive devaluation as the rial’s value decreased by about 25% in 2020, while the food prices in the country are currently the highest on record.

Yemen has also been affected by a desert locusts plague, the most destructive migratory pest, that caused an estimated damage of 222 million USD in 2020 (FAO, 2021). The food crisis has also been escalated by the continuous airstrikes and shelling attacks on Yemeni ground. Since 2018, 348 airstrikes and 570 cases of shelling have affected Yemeni farms, with an average of about one incident per day (NRC, 2020).

In a statement in 2020, Mr. Guterres warned about the critical situation in Yemen, stating: “Yemen is now in imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen for decades. In the absence of immediate action, millions of lives may be lost” (UN News, 2020b). Following the disappointing results of the March 1 virtual pledging event on Yemen, Mr. Guterres said: “Cutting aid is a death sentence,” and added, “The United Nations will continue to stand in solidarity with the starving people of Yemen” (UN News, 2021).