The head of the UN Food Agency warned after a visit to Yemen that his underfunded organization might be forced to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations in a desperate attempt to prevent widespread famine in the coming months, and described the circumstances in the war-torn war. nation as ‘hell’.
The World Food Program needs at least $ 815 million in Yemen aid over the next six months, but has only $ 300 million, the agency’s executive director, David Beasley, told The Associated Press. He said the agency needed another $ 1.9 billion to meet its targets for the year.
Beasley visited Yemen earlier this week, including the capital of Sanaa, which is under the control of Iran-backed Houthi rebels. He said he saw children in a Sanaa hospital getting away from lack of food. Many, he said, were on the verge of death due to completely preventable and treatable causes, and they were the lucky ones who received medical care.
He said the world needs to wake up to how bad things have gotten in Yemen, especially for the youngest in the country, whom he has seen in Sanaa Hospital in hospital beds.
In a child’s wing or ward in a hospital, you know you usually cry and hear laughter. There is no crying, there is no laughter, there is dead silence, ‘he said late Tuesday, speaking to the AP about a video conference from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he had just landed from Yemen.
“I went from room to room, and literally, kids, that it would be good anywhere else in the world, that maybe they would get a little sick, but that they would recover, but not here.”
“It’s hell,” he said. ‘This is the worst place on earth. And it was made entirely by man. ”
The UN has warned that 16 million people in Yemen – or about half the population – could experience severe food insecurity. Tens of thousands of people are already living in starvation conditions, in what aid organizations have called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Some 400,000 children need immediate help to save their lives from fatal malnutrition. Weakening fuel shortages could throw millions of others into deep poverty.
Since the outbreak of Yemen’s civil war six years ago, UN – led aid efforts have been chronically underfunded. This year’s global fundraising campaign also fell short – more than in previous years – as their dollar dollars shrank as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
A pledge conference last month raised just over half of the international community from what was needed to continue the food aid services for next year.
Yemen, already the poorest country in the Arab world, has been embroiled in a crippling war since 2014 when the Houthis descended from their northern enclave and took over Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee. In the spring of 2015, a US-led Saudi-led coalition launched a devastating air campaign to drive out the Houthis while imposing a land, sea and air ban on Yemen.
During the conflict, humanitarian agencies faced obstacles to providing assistance to those most in need, especially in areas controlled by Houthi; obstruction, mistrust and fighting played a role.
Beasley said his organization had made a profit on these fronts, especially in access and accountability to the Houthi authorities, and now the obstacle is simply a lack of funding.
“We made a turn at the Houthis … in terms of cooperation, cooperation,” he said.
He proposed a new program that verifies recipients of a cash assistance program via a biometric system to ensure it goes to the right people. This is a scheme that the organization plans to scale up if they can get more money.
It remains unclear where more money could come from. Beasley predicted more catastrophes in 2021 if world leaders did not help the most vulnerable countries, including Yemen, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syria.
“If there is not a lot of money in these places, you will have famine, mass destabilization and mass migration, around May, June, July,” he said.
One source of funding for Yemen could be a new anonymous aid fund. Beasley confirmed media reports about the famine relief fund, created by wealthy private donors, saying some of it could come from the United States and the Gulf. He said the WFP was already in talks with the fund. He does not want to expand.
Earlier this month, the publication The New Humanitarian targeted the aid industry over the rise of the Famine Fund, created by anonymous benefactors to address the Yemeni crisis, and wrote that it was already in talks with UN agencies and other aid groups.
Beasley said he has already reached out to the world’s billionaires to get them to contribute in some way. So far, the only condition for the money from the new anonymous fund is that it goes to those who are faltering on the brink of starvation, he said.
“My God, I’m going to take any dollar I can get anywhere in the world to save a child’s life,” he said.
Beasley reiterated the call for an end to the war, although the situation on the ground in Yemen is ready for a new escalation as Houthi and government forces fight for the oil-producing province of Marib. The fighting has displaced 15,000 people in the past month, many of whom have already fled the conflict in other areas, according to the UN Migration Agency.