DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The number of people in war-torn
Yemen starving in famine conditions is
projected to increase five-fold this year to 161,000, UN agencies warned
Monday, amid fears of a dire shortfall of life-saving aid.
اضافة اعلان
Over 30,000 people
are already struggling in famine conditions, a joint statement by the UN’s
Food and Agriculture Organization, UN children’s fund UNICEF, and the World Food
Program (WFP) said.
Calling the sharp rise “extremely worrying”, the
joint UN statement comes two days ahead of a high-level conference to raise aid
for Yemen, as fears mount that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens global
food supplies.
“These harrowing figures confirm that we are on a
countdown to catastrophe in Yemen and we are almost out of time to avoid it,”
WFP chief David Beasley said, warning of “mass starvation and famine” should
donors not offer aid to avert it.
Yemen depends almost entirely on food imports, with
nearly a third of wheat supplies coming from Ukraine, the UN said.
War in Ukraine following
Russia’s invasion “is
likely to lead to significant import shocks, further driving food prices,” the
UN said.
“The resounding takeaway is that we need to act
now,” said David Gressly, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.
UN-backed assessments use a ranking called the
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), which rates hunger levels
from one to five.
Under the IPC system, level five is classified as
“catastrophe”, and when it applies to 20 percent of the population is deemed a
famine.
IPC results on Monday showed 17.4 million people out
of Yemen’s 29 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity,
and total likely to increase this year to 19 million.
“An extremely worrying new data point is that the
number of people experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger ... is projected to
increase five-fold, from 31,000 currently to 161,000 people over the second
half of 2022,” the UN statement read.
The report said 2.2 million children are acutely
malnourished in Yemen, including “nearly more than half a million children
facing severe acute malnutrition, a life-threatening condition.”
“More and more children are going to bed hungry in
Yemen,” said UNICEF chief Catherine Russell.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed
directly and indirectly in the war, and millions have been displaced.
The UN has repeatedly warned that aid agencies are
running out of funds, forcing them to slash “life-saving” programs. Last year
the UN pleaded for $3.85 billion for aid, but raised just $1.7 billion.
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