GENEVA – A total of 21.1 million Yemenis, 80 percent of the population, are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, warned on Friday.“We’re facing a humanitarian crisis,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said during a press conference, adding “the public services are collapsing in all regions of the country.”
Meanwhile, World Food Program, or WFP, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said that more than 6 million people suffer from severe food insecurity and are “in need of immediate humanitarian assistance.”
According to this figure, one in every five Yemenis needs urgent help, she explained.
At the end of 2014, people suffering severe food insecurity numbered 3.4 million, an enormous amount, Byrs added.
The WFP has managed to distribute food to 1.7 million people in 11 regions in recent weeks, but Byrs said that it is a fraction compared to the number of those in need of help.
World Health Organization, or WHO, spokesman Christian Lindmeier said that the rate of people being treated in hospitals for malnutrition has increased by 150 percent.
Lindmeier also added that 53 health facilities, including 17 hospitals, were no longer in service, while the main operating center, where most of the surgical emergencies in Sana’a were performed, has been destroyed.
More than 15 million people, including a million displaced, require urgent health services, the UN official pointed out.
Yemen has been the epicenter of political unrest since 2011, worsened last September when the Houthi rebels launched their armed uprising.
The Shiite group gained control of the capital in February, forcing Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi into exile in Saudi Arabia.
In late March, Saudi Arabia formed an Arab coalition to launch airstrikes in Yemen, causing more than 2,600 deaths, half of whom were civilians, and huge damage to infrastructure.
No comments:
Post a Comment