Oxfam: Yemen Is Months Away From Running Out Of Food
Local Editor
Yemen's population is at risk of catastrophic hunger as food imports continue to plunge and on current trends the war torn country will effectively run out of things to eat in a few months, Oxfam warned.
The international agency said that in August, the amount of food imported into Yemen fell below half the level needed to feed the country's people and remained below that ever since.
A 20 month long Saudi war on the impoverished country has martyred and injured over 11,000 civilians, forced more than 3 million people to flee their homes and brought the economy to near collapse.
Mark Goldring, Oxfam GB Chief Executive, said:
"Yemen is being slowly starved to death. First there were restrictions on imports - including much need food - when this was partially eased the cranes in the ports were bombed, then the warehouses, then the roads and the bridges. This is not by accident - it is systematic.
"The country's economy, its institutions, its ability to feed and care for its people are all on the brink of collapse.
"There is still time to pull it back before we see chronic hunger becoming widespread starvation. The fighting needs to stop and the ports should be fully opened to vital supplies of food, fuel and medicine. As one of the principle backers of this brutal war Britain needs to end its arms sales and military support to the Saudis and help put Yemen on the road to peace."
Even before the conflict started, nearly 90 per cent of Yemen's food had to be imported. With the country's agriculture hit by the fighting, that reliance on food imports has only increased.
However restrictions on shipping which are punishing the Yemeni population and the destruction of many port facilities by the Saudi-led coalition means that meeting the country's food needs has reached a critical juncture.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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