Hisham Al-Hakami is 45 years old and earns less than three euros a day at a car wash in Sana’a, Yemen, with which he cannot properly feed his six children. For more than two months the family has not received the food basket of flour, cooking oil and rice supplied by international organizations, which have reduced their assistance programs to the country, especially in areas controlled by the Houthi rebels. The new sanctions from the United States, the shortage of international funds and general insecurity, which has resulted in the arrests of several humanitarian workers in recent months, explain this decrease in the presence of humanitarian entities.
However, the needs in this country, immersed in a civil war since 2014, are increasing and the country’s complex humanitarian crisis continues to be rated as one of the worst in the world. According to the UN, 4.5 million people (14% of the country’s population) have had to move, 18.2 million urgently need humanitarian aid and more than 17 million are food insecure. Nearly half of Yemeni children under five are moderately to severely stunted.
The UN foresees a $2.7 billion humanitarian response plan for Yemen by 2024 to serve more than 11 million people, of whom about a quarter have been achieved. For example, the World Food Program (WFP) has gathered only 7% of the money it needs for the period from June to November of this year, which was 1,290 million dollars (1,200 million euros). Zaid Al-Alaya, Head of Media Relations and Communications at the UN in Yemen, assures that aid agencies are making significant efforts to deliver life-saving aid to millions of people across the country. “Throughout 2023, these agencies provided humanitarian aid to an average of 8.4 million people per month,” he tells this newspaper.
Nearly half of Yemeni children under five are moderately to severely stunted
The situation in the country has further deteriorated since the military escalation in the Red Sea in late 2023, when the Huthi movement, whose real name is Ansar Allá (Supporters of God), attacked merchant ships heading to Israel in response. to the latter’s incessant bombing of the Gaza Strip. In retaliation, the United States and the United Kingdom attacked more than 60 targets of the Houthi rebels in Yemen in January and Washington launched an international naval mission that includes twenty countries, to defend themselves against the attacks, which have interrupted global trade routes. near the Gulf of Aden.
When the US re-listed the Houthis as terrorist groups in January and imposed sanctions on them to prevent further funding, Houthi leaders gave US and British UN and humanitarian organizations a month to headquarters in Sana’a left the country. At the end of February, various humanitarian organizations moved their projects from the southern regions governed by the Houthis to areas under the control of the internationally recognized Government based in Aden, at the request of this Executive and because they could not reach an understanding with the insurgents to continue. providing help to the population. Other local organizations had no choice and completely ceased operations when foreign funding was cut off.
The situation, already unstable, was aggravated in recent days with the arrest of some 13 United Nations workers. Among them, according to the UN, are members of the WFP, the World Health Organization (WHO), the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UNESCO, Unicef and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
“This disturbing news raises concerns about the Houthis’ commitment to a negotiated solution to the conflict,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The official was referring to the commitments made by the warring parties in December, including a ceasefire throughout the country and an inclusive political process under the auspices of the UN. But these arrests, coupled with the Huthi movement’s announcements to expand the scope of attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, hamper these efforts and erode trust.
Collateral damage
The situation has not always been like this, says Al Hakami, the father of a family who cannot feed his children. Until 2016, when a Saudi-led coalition launched a military intervention in support of the internationally recognized government led by then-president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, Al-Hakami was general director of the Al Thawra publishing house, which published the official Yemeni newspaper. Al Thawra, in the province of Amran, 50 kilometers north of Sana’a. He earned the equivalent of about 1,000 euros a month. When the Hadi government moved the Central Bank from Sana’a to Aden, following the Houthis’ takeover of the capital, the Houthis could no longer pay public salaries to people like Al-Hakami. For years, this man, like millions of others, relied heavily on the help he received from local humanitarian agencies, until sanctions were imposed.
“Many local organizations have closed their headquarters in Houthi-controlled areas, and others have begun to reduce their operations and have laid off many employees,” explains Angela Abu Asba, director of Angela for Development and Humanitarian Response, an initiative local aid financed by United Nations organizations. “If international organizations are struggling, imagine the situation of local ones. Many have closed, and their founders have dedicated themselves to small private projects to earn a living,” adds the official, explaining that she has also had to stop aid projects in provinces controlled by the Houthis due to lack of financing.
“The WFP has cut its support and funding for projects in Yemen, especially in the north,” explains Dunia Al-Anssy, director of monitoring and evaluation at the Mozn Charitable, Social and Development Foundation, a non-profit organization created in 2015. “This has caused serious deficits in some international and local organizations associated with WFP,” explains
Contacted by this newspaper, the WFP stressed that this year it has provided aid to a total of five million Yemenis. The institution temporarily suspended in November 2023 the food assistance program in the areas controlled by the Government based in Sana’a “due to lack of funds and agreement with the authorities on who said program should benefit. This affected the provision of assistance to 9.5 million people, the largest interruption of assistance in the agency’s 56-year history in Yemen, regrets the UN institution in its 2023 annual report.
“Discussions are ongoing with authorities and major donors on the path forward to resume aid,” the WFP reports in its April report. In parallel, and “to mitigate the most serious impacts of the pause in food assistance, WFP has designed a Rapid Emergency Response aimed at 1.7 million people in eight governorates of northern Yemen, in areas where a serious deterioration of food security.”
The WFP warns that also in the south of the country, “the worsening economic situation is putting upward pressure on food and fuel prices.”
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