UNITED NATIONS (HRNW) — The head of the U.N. food agency is warning that 16 million people in Yemen “are marching towards starvation” and says food rations for millions in the war-torn nation will be cut in October unless new funding arrives.
David Beasley said Wednesday at a high-level meeting on Yemen’s humanitarian crisis that the United States, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other donors stepped up when the World Food Program was running out of money earlier this year and “because of that we averted famine and catastrophe.”
WFP is running out of money again and without new funding reductions will be made in rations for 3.2 million people in October and for 5 million by December, he said.
At a virtual pledging conference co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland on March 1, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for $3.85 billion for Yemen this year. But donors pledged less than half the amount — $1.7 billion, which the U.N. chief called “disappointing.” In the last six months, the total has grown to just over half the amount required.
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