Int’l Agencies: Help Collapsing Yemen!

Local Editor

As Yemen continues to suffer from the Saudi aggression, International aid agencies have demanded life-saving support to millions of civilians in Yemen, who are struggling to survive starvation and disease in the wake of Saudi Arabia's atrocious aerial bombardment campaign.

On Monday, Britain-based Oxfam urged donor nations to provide aid for the Yemeni people rather than arms for the aggressors.

"Many areas of Yemen are on the brink of famine, and the cause of such extreme starvation is political," it said in a statement on the eve of a United Nations conference in Geneva to seek aid pledges for the Arab country.

The British charity further argued that Western governments are participating in the confab "while they continue to sell billions of dollars worth of weapons and military equipment to parties to the conflict."

The food crisis could deteriorate in case the international community fails to send a clear message that Saudi-led airstrikes against Yemen's western port city of Hudaydah, which serves as a primary entry point for humanitarian aid and fuel for the Arab country, would be "totally unacceptable", Oxfam noted.

Alexander Ventura, the emergency coordinator and head of mission in Yemen for Médecins Sans Frontières [MSF], also warned that, "The health system is at the verge of collapse and medical services are under fire." "Bilateral and institutional donors must prioritize assistance to the country's health system to avoid total collapse. Doctors and nurses have not been paid in six months."

Ventura added civilians are "deliberately targeted" by all warring sides in the Yemeni conflict, adding that severe acute malnutrition is on the rise.

"Children are more at risk of dying from preventable diseases, pregnant women are unable to deliver safely and people suffering chronic conditions like renal failure are in need of dialysis. Silent deaths must be prevented," he said.

Furthermore, the United Nations World Food Program [WFP] has appealed for life-saving assistance to millions of crisis-stricken Yemenis, calling on all parties in the conflict to allow unimpeded humanitarian access.

"The World Food Program is mounting three different types of interventions to help people, general food distribution of in kind food assistance, commodity vouchers and also specialized nutrition assistance. Altogether that is meant to reach 9.1 million people. However, due to funding constraints and access restrictions, we are unfortunately not able to help the number of people that we would like to," said Stephen Anderson, the WFP representative and country director in Yemen.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team