Alwaght- A UN agency says nine million people in Yemen are on the brink of starvation amid an ongoing brutal war by Saudi-led coalition against the impoverished Arab country.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) on Wednesday said it was scaling up its food aid in Yemen to tackle one of the world's worst hunger crises.
More than two years of the Saudi aggression have cut food deliveries by more than half and pushed the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country to the edge of famine. The United Nations says nearly 3.3 million people, including 2.1 million children, are acutely malnourished.
"The situation is getting close to a breaking point in Yemen with unprecedented levels of hunger and food insecurity. Millions of people can no longer survive without urgent food assistance," said Stephen Anderson, WFP's country director in Yemen, in a statement.
"We are in a race against time to save lives and prevent a full-scale famine unfolding in the country, but we urgently need resources to do this."
WFP said the new emergency operation will cost up to $1.2 billion to feed starving Yemenis for one year.
During the next two months, the agency aims to reach almost 7 million people facing hunger, prioritizing the regions of Taiz, Hodeidah, Lahj, Abyan and Sa'ada which are quickly sinking into famine-like conditions, WFP said.
Yemen has historically imported up to 90 percent of its food, mostly through the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah. But cranes there have been destroyed by airstrikes, forcing dozens of ships to line up offshore because they cannot be unloaded.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen Jamie McGoldrick says that lives are being lost to preventable diseases in the country. He added that hospitals and feeding centers struggle to cope due to problems with salary payments, insufficient essential supplies, and lack of medicines. Increasing malnutrition rates, particularly in children, are worsening the already difficult humanitarian situation.
For two years now, Yemen has borne the brunt of a brutal Saudi-led and US-backed aggression which has left over 12,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians including women and children killed. According to The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), over 1,400 children have been killed in the ongoing deadly Saudi war on Yemen. The Saudi regime launched its illegal aggression on Yemen to undermine the Ansarullah movement and restore to power fugitive Abdul Rabuh Mansour Hadi who resigned and fled the country.
The Saudi military aggression has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, mosques and factories.
