The head of the UN food agency warned after a visit to Yemen that his underfunded organization could be forced to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations in a desperate attempt to prevent widespread famine in the coming months, describing conditions during the nation’s war like “hell.”
The world food program needs at least $ 815 million in aid to Yemen over the next six months, but it has only $ 300 million, the agency’s chief executive, David Beasley, told the Associated Press in an interview. He said the agency would need another $ 1.9 billion to meet targets for that year.
Beasley visited Yemen earlier this week, including the capital Sanaa, which is under the control of Houthi rebels backed by Iran. He said that in a malnutrition ward for children in a Sanaa hospital, he saw children perishing from lack of food. Many, he said, were on the verge of death from causes that could be completely prevented and treated, and it was 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 some had seen on hospital beds in Sanaa Hospital.
“In a children’s wing or in a ward of a hospital, you know that you normally hear cries and laughter. There is no crying, no laughter, no deadly silence, “he said late Tuesday, speaking to the AP via video conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he had just landed in Yemen.
“I went from room to room, and literally children who would be fine anywhere else in the world might get a little sick, but they would recover, but not here.”
“This is hell,” he said. “It’s the worst place on earth. And it is entirely man-made. ”
The UN has warned that 16 million people in Yemen – or about half of the population – could face severe food insecurity. Tens of thousands of people are already living in famine in what aid organizations have called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. About 400,000 children need immediate assistance to save their lives from deadly malnutrition. Worsening fuel shortages could plunge millions into deep poverty.
Since the outbreak of the Yemeni civil war six years ago, UN-led relief efforts have been chronically underfunded. This year, global fundraising has also been short – more than in previous years – as the dollar for aid has shrunk as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
An engagement conference last month raised just over half of the international community from what was needed to continue food aid services for next year.
Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, has been caught in a 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 coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched a destructive air campaign to deploy Houthis while imposing a land, sea and air embargo on Yemen.
Throughout the conflict, humanitarian agencies have encountered obstacles in getting help to those who need it most, especially in Houthi-controlled territories; obstruction, mistrust and struggle played a role.
Beasley said his organization has made gains on these fronts, especially in terms of access to and accountability to the Houthi authorities, and now the obstacle is simply a lack of funding.
“I turned a corner with Houthis … in terms of cooperation, collaboration,” he said.
He supported a new program through which beneficiaries of a cash aid program are checked through a biometric system to make sure it goes to the right people. It is a scheme that the organization intends to expand, if it can obtain more funding.
It remains unclear where more money could come from. Beasley predicted more catastrophes in 2021 if world leaders do not prioritize aid to the most vulnerable countries, including Yemen, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria.
“About May, June, July, if we don’t have massive amounts of money in these places, you will have mass starvation, mass destabilization and mass migration,” he said.
A source of funding for Yemen could be a new anonymous aid fund. Beasley confirmed media reports about the Hunger Relief Fund, created by wealthy private donors, and said some of it could be from the United States and the Gulf. He said WFP was already in talks with the fund. He would not have elaborated.
Earlier this month, The New Humanitarian, a relief industry-focused publication, reported the emergence of the Hunger Relief Fund, set up by anonymous benefactors to help tackle the Yemen crisis, and wrote that it was already in talks with UN agencies and help groups.
Beasley said he has already reached out to the world’s billionaires to get them to contribute somehow. So far, the only provision that has come with the money from the new anonymous fund would be that it goes to those who are staggering on the brink of starvation, he said.
“God, I’m going to take any dollar I can get from anywhere in the world to save a child’s life right now,” he said.
Beasley reiterated calls for the war to be stopped, although the situation on the ground in Yemen is preparing for a new escalation, while government forces and Houthi are fighting for the oil-producing Marib province. Fighting there 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.