The United Nations yesterday made what it said was a record appeal for aid to Yemen, calling for nearly $3bn in humanitarian relief for the war-torn country.
The $2.96bn will be used to respond to an ever-broadening crisis in Yemen, where war, looming famine and cholera have killed thousands and put millions of lives at risk.
The appeal, made on behalf of UN agencies and humanitarian partners, came as 11.3mn people “urgently require assistance to survive”, UN aid agency OCHA said in a statement.
“A generation of children is growing up in suffering and deprivation,” OCHA said.
“Nearly 2mn children are out of school, 1.8mn children under the age of five are acutely malnourished, including 400,000 who suffer from severe acute malnutrition and are 10 times more likely to die if they do not receive medical treatment.”
More than 9,200 people have been killed in Yemen since 2015, when a Saudi-led military coalition intervened to back the country’s internationally-recognised government against rebels.
Another nearly 2,200 Yemenis have died of cholera amid deteriorating hygiene and sanitation conditions, the World Health Organisation says.
Over the past year, the United Nations’ efforts to address what it has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis have been hampered by a crippling blockade of rebel-held ports by the Saudi-led coalition.
More than three-quarters of Yemen’s population — 22.2mn people — are now dependent on some form of assistance in Yemen, the United Nations says.
Some 8.4mn Yemenis are also at risk of famine, according to OCHA.




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