A new UN report has highlighted that more than 13M people across Yemen are experiencing food insecurity due to the temporary suspension of food aid distribution for about 7 months.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) stated that “the latest humanitarian updates in Yemen indicate that 13.2M people are suffering from food insecurity as a result of the World Food Programme’s suspension of food aid distribution since November 2023.”
The report further mentioned that “among these, 4.7M people are facing food insecurity at the ’emergency’ level, which is the fourth stage of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC 4), where at least one in every five families experiences severe gaps in food consumption leading to acute malnutrition or increased mortality.”
UNOCHA pointed out that “the suspension of aid distribution has exacerbated food insecurity in these areas, especially for poor families reliant on this assistance, leading to an increase in prevalence of poor food consumption among beneficiaries from the end of 2023 to February 2024 (from 23% to 38%) and insufficient food consumption (from 58% to 66%).”
The report warned that “continuing the temporary suspension of aid distribution is likely to further deteriorate the food security situation, especially in 48 specific priority directorates that witnessed rapid deterioration during the suspension period.”
UNOCHA emphasized that “despite support from partners in the Food Security Sector Group, Agriculture, and the World Food Programme, only 3.8M out of 12.8M people needing assistance across Yemen were supported in the first quarter of this year (2024).”
The UN agency concluded: “There is an urgent need to fill a funding gap of $170M to resume humanitarian food aid distribution in northern areas, in addition to $80M to ensure continued assistance until the World Food Programme’s activities are restarted.”
