Yemen

Donors have given the equivalent of 25 US cents per day for each of the 24.3 million people in need in Yemen, about half the amount given last year, Oxfam warned today.

The dramatic cut comes despite COVID-19 heaping further challenges on a country already suffering the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

The threat of “COVID famines” and widespread extreme hunger are setting off every alarm bell within the international community, but so far sluggish funding of the UN's appeal is hampering humanitarian agencies’ efforts to deliver urgent assistance to people in need.

Wherever women are, peace is. Women and peace are synonyms.

Women from 11 conflict and post conflict countries share stories of fight to rebuild their countries and find peace a new photo collection that will be published on Word Peace Day on Monday, 21 September.

Reacting to the latest report by the UN’s Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director Muhsin Siddiquey said: “This damning evidence of indiscriminate attacks and serious violations of human rights by all sides in Yemen should shame all those who are fuelling this conflict by selling arms to the belligerents."

Medical and water infrastructure in Yemen has been hit during air raids almost 200 times since the conflict escalated more than five years ago, as the country continues to battle its outbreak of COVID-19.

Thousands of people in Yemen could be dying from undetected cases of cholera because COVID-19 has overwhelmed the country’s health facilities and people are too frightened to seek treatment for fear of the virus, Oxfam said today.

The number of coronavirus cases in Yemen is likely to peak in the coming weeks while the heaviest rains are expected in August which could deepen a hidden cholera crisis.

Reacting to the IPC announcement on the levels of hunger in the south of Yemen and their forecast for the months ahead, Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director, Muhsin Siddiquey said: “This new data shows how bleak the situation is for the millions of Yemenis struggling with hunger as conflict has decimated infrastructure, restricted food imports, and led to mass unemployment."

As many as 12,000 people could die per day by the end of the year as a result of hunger linked to COVID-19, potentially more than could die from the disease, warned Oxfam in a new briefing published today. The global observed daily mortality rate for COVID-19 reached its highest recorded point in April 2020 at just over 10,000 deaths per day.

In reaction to the reprehensible attack that killed 13 civilians, including children, in the north of Yemen yesterday, Oxfam and seven other international agencies working in Yemen strongly condemned the attack.

Reacting to the outcome of the pledging conference for Yemen, Jose Maria Vera, Oxfam International’s Executive Director, said: "Donors’ pledges to Yemen are failing to keep up with the growing need in the country".