Alwaght-Over 20 million Yemenis are starving amid an ongoing Saud-led aggression on the impoverished country that is facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
According to a Saturday report by the Norwegian Refugee Council , more than 20 million people across Yeman are hungry. Half of these people are suffering from extreme levels of hunger or are a just one step away from famine. This is a 14 per cent increase from last year. Two-thirds of all districts in the country are already pre-famine.
Close to 240,000 people are already living in famine like conditions in some locations. Hunger is most severe in the areas where there is fighting. The report notes that Millions of Yemenis are hungrier, sicker and more vulnerable than a year ago, pushing an ever-greater number of people in to seeking humanitarian assistance to survive.
Of the country’s 29 million inhabitants, 24 million people need some form of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 14.3 million who are in acute need. Severity of needs is deepening, with the number of people in acute need is a staggering 27 per cent higher than last year.
Humanitarian aid is increasingly becoming the only lifeline for millions of Yemenis.
The report notes that four years into the Yemen conflict, the scale of destruction in Yemen has reached unprecedented levels: estimates of 80,000 people having died as a direct result of the violence. Many more people may have died from hunger and diseases.
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) recorded over 30,000 deaths in Yemen last year stemming directly from the conflict — a more than 82 per cent increase in total reported fatalities from 2017.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah movement. The Saudi-led war on Yemen, backed by the US, Britain and the Israeli regime, has been unable to attain its stated objective and instead turned Yemen into the world worst humanitarian crisis.
