13 Million Yemenis May Face Starvation, UN Food Agency Warns

By Staff, Agencies

The head of the United Nations food agency warned that 13 million Yemenis are headed for starvation due to the lack of funding for humanitarian aid.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, David Beasley said that Yemen was “in a very bad situation” with more than 40 percent of the population already relying on food supplies from the World Food Program.

"We’re feeding 13 million people out of a nation of 30 million people, and we are running out of money,” Beasley said, speaking from the capital, Sanaa.

Since the pandemic hit, more people have been facing the threat of starvation globally, which put tremendous pressures on the WFP, Beasley said. Now, 285 million people around the world face the threat of starvation, which makes it more difficult to attend to Yemen's needs, he added.

“We've got twice the number of people struggling around the world now,” Beasley said. “So, what am I going to do for the children in Yemen? Steal it from the children in Ethiopia, or Afghanistan, or Nigeria or in Syria? That’s not right,” he added.

Beasley said his agency was forced to cut rations in half for eight million Yemenis due to the shortage of funds.

“We may be cutting those down to zero. What do you think will happen? People will die. It will be catastrophic,” he said.

According to the UN food agency, around 811 million people do not have enough food across the globe, and an estimated 45 million people in 43 countries are at risk of famine.

Beasley said the WFP needs an extra 9 billion dollars to meet the rising demand for food aid around the world.

“The $430 trillion worth of wealth in the world today, there should not be a single child dying anywhere on earth,” he contended.

For almost seven years, the Riyadh-led war on the besieged Arab country, aimed at re-installing the regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, has spawned the most horrible humanitarian disaster.

The protracted war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni civilians and turned the largely mountainous country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Yemeni defense forces have, however, vowed not to lay down their arms until the country’s complete liberation from the scourge of the invasion.