Yemen – Humanitarian Crisis of Enormous Magnitude – Protracted Conflict & Suffering – Women & Children – Why So Little Global Attention?
Author: WUNRN
Date: December 20, 2016
Yemen – Humanitarian Crisis of Enormous Magnitude – Protracted Suffering – Women & Children
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34011187
6 December 2016 – More than 21 months of conflict have devastated Yemen, and left 18 million people in need of some kind of humanitarian assistance.
More than half a million children are seriously malnourished in Yemen – Reuters photo.
Yemen – The country is experiencing a ‘humanitarian catastrophe.’
The UN says more than 7,270 people – mostly civilians – have been killed and 38,280 others injured since the conflict between forces loyal to exiled President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and those allied to the Houthi rebel movement escalated in March 2015.
Fighting on the ground and air strikes on rebel-held areas by a Saudi-led coalition backed by the US and UK have displaced more than three million people.
And seven million people do not know where their next meal might come from.
Yemen was already struggling
Yemen has been plagued by years of instability, poor governance, lack of rule of law, under-development, environmental decline and widespread poverty.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionMore than half-a-million children are severely malnourished in Yemen
Before 2015, almost half of all Yemenis lived below the poverty line, two-thirds of youths were unemployed, and social services were on the verge of collapse.
Almost 16 million people were in need of some form of humanitarian assistance.
Civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence
Just under half of Yemen’s population is under 18 and at least 1,339 children are among the dead, according to the UN children’s fund (Unicef).
A report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, in August 2016 laid out a number of serious allegations of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law committed by all sid
They included attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure; the use of landmines and cluster bombs; sniper and drone attacks against civilians; detentions; targeted killings; the recruitment and use of children in hostilities; and forced evictions and displacement.
Two thirds of Yemenis need aid
As of November 2016, an estimated 18.8 million people – 69% of Yemen’s population – needed some kind of humanitarian or protection assistance, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA). That includes 10.3 million in acute need, who urgently require immediate, life-saving assistance in at least one sector.
The government says there are also between 1.7 and two million refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Yemen, 460,000 of whom need humanitarian assistance.
An estimated 14 million people are considered food insecure and seven million severely food insecure.
About 3.3 million children and pregnant or breast-feeding women are acutely malnourished, including 462,000 children under five who face severe acute malnutrition. That represents a 63% increase since late 2015 and threatens the lives and life-long prospects of those affected, according to the UN.
Yemen usually imports more than 90% of staple food. But a naval embargo imposed by the Saudi-led coalition, fighting around the government-controlled port of Aden and air strikes on the rebel-held port of Hudaydah, have severely reduced imports since 2015.
A lack of fuel, coupled with insecurity and damage to markets and roads, have also prevented supplies from being distributed.
Basic commodity prices are on average 26% higher than before the conflict, while purchasing power has been substantially reduced because of dwindling livelihoods.
The poverty rate has doubled to 62%, with public sector salaries – on which about 30% of the population depend – paid only irregularly.
Millions lack access to safe water and sanitation. Reuters photo
The restrictions on imports of fuel – essential for maintaining the water supply – combined with damage to pumps and sewage treatment facilities, also mean that 14.4 million people now lack access to safe drinking water or sanitation.
People have been forced to rely on untreated water supplies and unprotected wells, placing them at risk of life-threatening illnesses. An outbreak of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea was declared in October. As of 24 November, 103 cases of cholera had beenand 76 cholera-associated deaths reported.
Those affected by the outbreak, and the wider conflict, have struggled to get medical help. An estimated 14.8 million people lack access to basic healthcare, with 8.8 million living in severely affected areas. Only 45% of the 3,507 health facilities surveyed by the World Health Organization in November were fully functioning, and even they faced severe medicine, equipment and staff shortages.
As of October 2016, at least 274 health facilities had been damaged or destroyed in the conflict. Thirteen health workers have meanwhile been killed and 31 injured.
Treatments for chronically ill patients are increasingly unavailable due to import difficulties, rising prices or lack of health personnel. Mothers and young children are also at particular risk.
The conflict has also taken a toll on education. More than 1,600 schools are currently unfit for use due to damage, presence of displaced people or occupation by combatants, and some two million children are out of school.
Aid organisations are struggling to help
More than 70 humanitarian organisations have been working to help those in need. However, access constraints, damaged infrastructure and unreliable access to fuel, together with a lack of funding, have hampered their efforts.
As of December, the UN’s appeal for $1.6bn (£1.25bn) to allow it to assist 11.7 million people in Yemen was only 58% funded.
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From: WUNRN LISTSERVE
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2016 10:13 PM
Subject: Yemen – – Worst Forecasts Become Reality as Yemen Starves – Conflict Continues – Humanitarian Disaster – Women & Children
WUNRN
Yemen – Worst Forecasts Become Reality as Yemen Starves
http://ara.reuters.com/article/topNews/idARAKCN12S2JS?sp=true
Author: Ahmed AlwlyPosted – November 3, 2016
SANAA, Yemen — A collection of shocking photos of starving people barely surviving have shown the world that Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East according to the World Food Programme (WFP), has plunged into famine.
The photos, taken in the district of al-Tuhayat in Yemen’s western province of Hodeidah, have shocked Yemenis and panicked relief organizations. They tragically prove the extent of the catastrophe resulting from 18 months of civil war, which Saudi Arabia joined leading a regional military coalition on March 26, 2015.
Despite the United Nations’ warnings of the coming famine, the photos of hungry Yemenis left no doubt that it’s arrived.
Nearly 5,800 people reside in the starving district, spread among small towns. It lies on the coast between the port cities of Hodeidah and Mokha. The severe food shortage is worst there, where the situation is the most severe, but half of the Yemeni population lives in hunger. The United Nations Children’s Fund stated Oct. 28, “Yemen’s 18-month war has left 370,000 children at risk of severe malnutrition — a condition which needs urgent treatment to prevent a child from dying.”
Salman Abdul Raqib, a member of the BasmtnaSalam initiative, which had sent aid convoy from Sanaa to the Tuhayat district Oct. 22, told Al-Monitor that famine has hit 90% of the district’s population, “which is absolutely horrible. Some of those who received our aid are very skinny. They are skin and bone and barely moving, not only because of hunger, but also for being sick.”
He added, “There are merchants and organizations providing assistance to the people of Tuhayat that is easing their hunger. But for how long will it last? Can we ensure that these people will be fed for another year? If the war continues and the economy continues to deteriorate, who will be providing for them?”
Fear of the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes on the Tihama coastal areas is largely to blame for the suffering of Tuhayat, whose citizens are dependent upon fisheries as their source of income. As the Saudi-led coalition started shelling fishing boats, which the coalition accuses of supplying the rebels with weapons, the fishermen have stopped fishing and lost their livelihoods.
The WFP reported Sept. 25, “The number of food-insecure people in Yemen is estimated at close to 14 million, according to a WFP food security assessment in June. This includes 7 million people who are severely food insecure, with 70% of the population of some governorates unable to provide food for themselves.”
The situation has been aggravated by the delayed payment of the salaries of 1.25 million state employees. This income is depended on by 6.9 million people, 48.2% of whom are children, according to an October report by the Yemeni Ministry of Planning.
Hunger is not limited to Yemen’s west coast. In the capital of Sanaa, dozens of new people have joined the long list of beggars roaming the streets and commercial centers.
Um Mohammed told Al-Monitor while begging next to al-Jumhouri Hospital, “I could not bear my children crying from hunger pains. I have no food at home, and I lost my job as a housemaid a year and a half ago. Begging is my last resort.”
Mohammed sits six hours a day on the sidewalk with her back to an electrical pole, with her three children between 5 and 10 years of age sitting next to her to inspire pity in the passers-by.
She added, “There were charities that provided us on a monthly basis with basic foods such as flour, rice and sugar. But they no longer exist. I am a widow and I beg to feed my children. We have not heard from my husband since 2011.”
The warring parties in Yemen continue to spend tens of millions of dollars to finance the war and buy weapons while poverty and hunger have ravaged most of Yemen’s cities.
The warring parties, the Houthis and President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government, seem indifferent to the dire situation in Tuhayat and other districts and leave it to international organizations and youth and business initiatives to address.
Asked whether the government will act to resolve the food crisis in Hodeidah, a senior government source told Al-Monitor, “I do not have that information.” An Ansar Allah official likewise refused to comment on the issue.
Yemen is on the brink of disaster. The health, education and food systems have collapsed, and thousands of Yemenis have exhausted all of their survival strategies. Many may starve to death if the war continues much longer.
Undoubtedly, local actors are by themselves unable to halt the civil war that has killed at least 10,000 people as of August 2016, according to the UN. It is up to Saudi Arabia and Iran to decide on the matter, or at least to pressure their Yemeni allies to negotiate.
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From: WUNRN LISTSERVE
Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2016 10:39 AM
Subject: Yemen – Famine – Starving Children – Protracted War & Attacks – Poverty & Humanitarian Disaster
YEMEN – FAMINE – STARVING CHILDREN – PROTRACTED WAR & ATTACKS – POVERTY & HUMANITARIAN DISASTER
Six-year-old Salem Abdullah Musabih is held by his mother in an intensive care unit in the Red Sea port of Hodaida. Photograph: Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters
By Emma Graham-Harrison & Agencies – 4 October 2016
Civil war has created ‘very severe needs’, the UN warns, while a blockade aimed at hurting Houthi rebels has made the situation worse.
Six-year-old Salem Abdullah Musabih is held by his mother in an intensive care unit in the Red Sea port of Hodaida. Photograph: Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters
Dozens of emaciated children are fighting for their lives in Yemen’s hospital wards, as fears grow that civil war and a sea blockade that has lasted for months are creating famine conditions in the Arabian peninsula’s poorest country.
The UN’s humanitarian aid chief, Stephen O’Brien, described a visit to meet “very small children affected by malnutrition” in the Red Sea city of Hodeida. “It is of course absolutely devastating when you see such terrible malnutrition,” he said on Tuesday, warning of “very severe needs”.
Analysis of a comprehensive, open source data survey shows the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing campaign has regularly hit civilian, economic and cultural sites
More than half of Yemen’s 28 million people are already short of food, the UN has said, and children are particularly badly hit, with hundreds of thousands at risk of starvation.
There are 370,000 children enduring severe malnutrition that weakens their immune system, according to Unicef, and 1.5 million are going hungry. Food shortages are a long-term problem, but they have got worse in recent months. Half of children under five are stunted because of chronic malnutrition.
A woman waits to weigh her son in an intensive care unit in Sana’a. Photograph: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
A sea blockade on rebel-held areas enforced by the Saudi-coalition supporting the president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, stops shipments reaching most ports.
Its effects can be seen in centres such as the Thawra hospital, where parents cram waiting rooms seeking help for hungry and dying children. In April, between 10 and 20 children were brought for treatment, but the centre is now struggling with 120 a month, Reuters reported.
A woman waits to weigh her son in an intensive care unit in Sana’a. Photograph: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
Among them are Salem Issa, a six-year-old so emaciated he looks years younger and is now too ill to eat. “I used to feed him biscuits, but he’s sick. He won’t eat,” said his mother.
The crisis may get worse after Hadi ordered changes at the central bank. Aimed at squeezing the funds of Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, the move could leave ordinary Yemenis short of cash and make food shortages worse by depriving traders of the financial cover the bank has offered.
Ibrahim Mahmoud, of Yemen’s Social Development Fund, told Reuters only an improvement in the country’s financial system and an emergency aid effort could prevent the spread of hunger.
“If there is no direct and immediate intervention on behalf of the international community and state organisations, we could be threatened by famine and a humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.
Oxfam’s humanitarian policy adviser, Richard Stanforth, said: “Everything is stacked against the people on the brink of starvation in Yemen. The politicisation of the central bank and attempts by the parties in the conflict to use it as a tool to hurt one another … threaten to push the poorest over the edge.”
Shift in government policy comes as abuse accusations mount against both Saudi-led coalition and Iran-backed Houthi rebels
Hadi moved the central bank headquarters from Sana’a, the capital currently controlled by Houthi rebels, to the southern port of Aden which his government holds. He also appointed a new governor, who said the bank had no money.
“It risks leaving the salaries of more than a million Yemenis unpaid. There may be a long-term effect on the Houthis, but the immediate effect will be on normal people trying to put food on the table,” the Yemeni economic analyst Amal Nasser said.
The sea blockade and daily airstrikes, which have hit civilian targets including hospitals, are part of a campaign to push rebels out of the capital.
There have been widespread calls for an independent inquiry into the conflict, including from senior British MPs. More than a third of Saudi-led bombing raids are thought to have hit civilian sites, and human rights groups say violations are also being perpetrated by Houthi rebels.
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