Regular Press Briefing by the Information Service, 16 October 2018 – Yemen operation update
Yemen – operational update
Hervé Verhoosel, for the World Food Programme (WFP), said that Yemen was currently facing the world’s worst hunger crisis, with almost 18 million people not knowing where their next meal would come from, of whom 8 million were considered to be on the brink of famine. Some 570,000 people had fled Hudaydah since June, the currency had plummeted and the cost of food had risen by a third in one year. If the situation persisted, there could be an additional 3.5 million people in need of regular food assistance, for a total of 12 million. Since 2017, WFP had increased its assistance to Yemen by 25 per cent despite a difficult security situation, limited access and frequent attacks. It distributed food aid to 8 million inhabitants a month. Several boats were on their way to the various now functioning ports, a secondary route had been opened via Oman and there was currently enough foodstuffs to provide assistance to 6.4 million people for the next two and a half months. However, access to the 51,000 tons of grain stored in silos on the Red Sea – which could help a further 3.7 million people for a month – remained blocked. WFP was continuously adapting to the evolving conditions on the ground, but it would not be able to continue to do so much longer. It called once again for humanitarian actors to be allowed to operate and maintain their neutrality, for free access to ports and roads, and for an end to the manipulation of humanitarian aid. Otherwise, an already dire situation would become even more dramatic.
Replying to questions from journalists, Mr. Verhoosel said that the current situation was not the result of any one single issue but, rather, of an accumulation of economic, security and monetary problems. While WFP was carrying out tremendous work given the conditions on the ground, some areas remained inaccessible and not all children in need could receive long-term support, so some were dying on a daily basis. The situation was untenable and the international community had to step up and better support United Nations agencies and NGOs. The first step was to enforce humanitarian law and that was why WFP was, once again, raising the alarm.
In response to the same questions, Christophe Boulierac, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said that Yemen was the crisis with the biggest proportion of child victims. Some 400,000 children suffered from severe acute malnutrition and nearly 2 million from acute malnutrition. Children died daily owing to food shortages and lack of access to life-saving health care services.
In response to a request by a journalist for a more robust reaction to the conflict from the United Nations, Rhéal LeBlanc, for the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, said that the Secretary-General was extremely concerned about the protracted conflicts in Yemen and elsewhere and his Special Envoys were doing their utmost to bring the parties together to find political solutions to these conflicts. That being said, the Member States also had to do their part.