Alwaght- Continuance of Saudi attacks and aggressions against Yemeni people could cause a famine in the impoverished Arab country in 2017, UN warned.
RT quoted UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien as saying that more than one third of the country’s population is in dire need of humanitarian aid and the country could face famine this year unless immediate action is taken to stop the ongoing conflict.
During a UN Security Council, O’Brien said "an astounding 10.3 million Yemenis ... require immediate assistance to save or sustain their lives [and] at least two million people need emergency food assistance to survive."
He mentioned the ongoing conflict in Yemen as “the primary driver of the largest food security emergency in the world”.
The UN envoy urged warring sides to try to stop violence and warned that continuation of this conditions leads to some serious consequences.
“If there is no immediate action, famine is now a possible scenario for 2017,”he warned. O’Brien noted that more than two thirds of the country’s population - a total of some 18.8 million Yemenis is in need of humanitarian and protection assistance.
O’Brien heads the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Yemen and though he says since the initiation of Saudi attacks in March 2015, some 7469 have been killed and 40,483 injured, the figures provided by other organizations and even other divisions of the UN, put the numbers much higher at more than 11,000 fatalities.
Apart from the direct casualties of the armed conflict, there are the so-called ‘silent deaths,’ with people dying from severe food shortages and disease, the majority of them being children. These deaths are largely unrecorded, and their numbers could be much higher. O'Brien said some 2.2 million babies, young boys and girls are “acutely malnourished, and almost half a million children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition,” which is a 63 percent increase since late 2015, according to UN data.
The UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, also told the UN Security Council the cause of these “tragic consequences for the Yemeni people” is the “dangerous” upsurge in airstrikes and fighting in the region.
The envoy added that every 10 minutes, a child under the age of five is dying in Yemen of preventable causes, warning the situation for children is “especially grave” and has called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. He stressed that “there is a clear path out of the violence” and that “the war can be stopped […] with political courage and will.” “I hope Yemen’s leaders will be able to see the impact that this tragedy has had on the country, make the bold decision to commit to a political solution and put an end to the senseless violence,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the Council.
