Four out of five Yemenis are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including 10 million children in the war-torn country, a top United Nations humanitarian official said. More than 1.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
“The scale of human suffering in Yemen is nearly incomprehensible,” Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council Wednesday, adding that he was “shocked” by what he saw in Yemen.
The U.N. has raised Yemen to its highest level of humanitarian crisis, alongside crises in South Sudan, Syria and Iraq.
“I have seen the anguish of the Yemeni people with my own eyes — men, women and children alike unsure where their next meal will come from or if they will ever be able to return to their homes,” O’Brien said.
The “disregard” for human life by both parties to the conflict has worsened the dire situation, and O’Brien condemned airstrikes on the port of Hudaydah this week, which damaged the country’s ability to transport goods necessary for survival.
O’Brien described a hospital he visited that had run out of exam gloves and medicines. The lights, running on backup generators low on fuel, flickered as O’Brien visited with patients who lay on cardboard on the hospital floor.
“There I saw a young man injured by shrapnel; he said he had been a soldier since he was 15 years old,” O’Brien said. “I saw a young woman who was grazed by a bullet across her face while sitting in her own home …”
Eight children are killed or maimed every day in Yemen as a result of the conflict, and leaders’ lack of regard for civilians’ lives, according to a new United Nations Children’s Fund report.
“This conflict is a particular tragedy for Yemeni children,” said Julien Harneis, UNICEF representative in Yemen. “They are being killed by bombs or bullets, and those that survive face the growing threat of disease and malnutrition. This cannot be allowed to continue.”
Yemen’s population of 26 million people is also on the brink of famine, warned the U.N.’s World Food Program. Lack of water and fuel combined with food shortages have created a “perfect storm” and left nearly 13 million Yemenis in need of urgent help, said Ertharin Cousin, the executive director of the World Food Program. Cousin, who also visited Yemen, said aid agencies cannot reach the people most in need of assistance due to the ongoing conflict.
The conflict began in March when Shiite Muslims in northern Yemen, backed by Iran and loyal to Yemen’s ex-president, stormed the country and took over Sanaa, forcing the government into exile. Soldiers loyal to the exiled government in the south are fighting back, aided by a Saudi Arabia-backed coalition and airstrikes. While Yemen does not have the wealth of other Persian Gulf states, the country is strategically important due to its geographic location on the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a narrow waterway through which the majority of the world’s oil shipments must pass.
Since the war began, U.N. relief agencies have assisted nearly 7 million Yemenis with shelter, food, water, and basic health services.
The advance of the rebel Houthis has forced the U.S. to scale back airstrikes it had been carrying out against al Qaeda in Yemen, the BBC reports.
