There are just three months left to avoid what could be ‘the worst famine in 100 years’, according to the United Nations.
Yemen is in the grip of a civil war that began three years ago with air strikes by Saudi Arabia contributing to the humanitarian crisis.
There are now 13,000,000 people who are on the brink of starvation.
Saida Ahmad Baghili, an 18-year-old Yemeni from an impoverished coastal village on the outskirts of the rebel-held Yemeni port city of Hodeida (Picture: AFP)A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition is weighed at a hospital in the district of Aslam in the northwestern Hajjah province on September 28, 2018. (Photo by ESSA AHMED / AFP) (Photo credit should read ESSA AHMED/AFP/Getty Images)(FILES) In this file photo taken on September 8, 2018, a Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition receives treatment at a hospital in the northern district of Abs, in Yemen’s Hajjah province. – The UN has warned that international aid agencies are losing the fight against famine in Yemen, where 3.5 million people may soon be added to the eight million Yemenis already facing starvation — more than half of them children. (Photo by AFP)/AFP/Getty Images
Lise Grande from the United Nations told the BBC: ‘I think many of us felt as we went into the 21st century that is was unthinkable that we could see a famine like saw in Ethiopia, that we saw in Bengal, that we saw in parts of the Soviet Union, that was just unacceptable.
‘Many of us had the confidence that that would never happen again and yet the reality is that in Yemen that is precisely what we are looking at.
‘We predict that we could be looking at 12 to 13 million innocent civilians who are at risk of dying from the lack of food.’
When asked if the world should be ashamed, she responded: ‘Yes. There’s no question we should be ashamed, and we should, every day that we wake up, renew our commitment to do everything possible to help the people that are suffering and end the conflict.’
The United Nations and humanitarian workers yesterday condemned an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels that reportedly killed at least 15 civilians near the port city of Hodeida.
In this Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018 photo, a father gives water to his malnourished daughter at a feeding center in a hospital in Hodeida, Yemen. With US backing, the United Arab Emirates and its Yemeni allies have restarted their all-out assault on Yemen???s port city of Hodeida, aiming to wrest it from rebel hands. Victory here could be a turning point in the 3-year-old civil war, but it could also push the country into outright famine. Already, the fighting has been a catastrophe for civilians on the Red Sea coast. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)AL KHAWKHAH, YEMEN – SEPTEMBER 18: Nurses measure Ammar Khalid, ten months, while undergoing treatment for severe acute malnutrition at a health clinic on September 18, 2018 in Al Khawkhah, Yemen. Khalid and his mother fled fighting from their village on the frontline of fighting in Hodeidah province. A coalition military campaign has moved west along Yemen’s coast toward Hodeidah, where increasingly bloody battles have killed hundreds since June, putting the country’s fragile food supply at risk. (Photo by Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images)
Video footage released by the rebels, known as Houthis, showed a mangled minibus littered with groceries and a woman’s hand bag, with rebel officials saying a day earlier that the airstrike in the Jebel Ras area had also wounded 20 others.
The Houthis said that five members of the same family were killed in the vehicle, adding that many women and children were among the casualties. Eyewitnesses who declined to be named for fear of their safety said that the attack appeared to target a rebel checkpoint in the area.
‘The United Nations agencies working in Yemen unequivocally condemn the attack on civilians and extend our deepest condolences to the families of the victims,’ said Lise Grande, the U.N.’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen.
‘Under international humanitarian law, parties to the conflict are obliged to respect the principles of precaution, proportionality and distinction,’ said Grande. ‘Belligerents must do everything possible to protect civilians – not hurt, maim, injure or kill them,’ she added.
Hodeida, with its key port installations that bring in U.N. and other humanitarian aid, has become the center of Yemen’s conflict, with ground troops allied to the coalition struggling to drive out the rebels controlling it.
A malnourished boy cries as he sits on a bed in a malnutrition treatment centre at the al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen October 6, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled AbdullahA malnourished boy lies on a bed in a malnutrition treatment centre at the al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen October 6, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled AbdullahA Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition lies on a bed at a treatment centre in a hospital in the capital Sanaa on October 6, 2018. (Photo by MOHAMMED HUWAIS / AFP)MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images
The United Nations in Yemen says that since June, more than 170 people have been killed and at least 1,700 have been injured in Hodeida province, with over 425,000 people forced to flee their homes.
The Norwegian Refugee Council also condemned the attack, calling such strikes on Yemeni civilians ‘unacceptable’ acts that have taken on a chillingly regular frequency.
Attacks that kill and maim civilians are no longer an anomaly in Yemen’s war,’ the humanitarian group said in a statement, summing up a rising and regular toll of civilian casualties since last summer.
In early August, dozens of people were killed by explosions outside a hospital and market, then over 50 people slaughtered a week later when airstrikes hit a busload of children, it said, and a week after that more than 25 people were killed in fighting while fleeing their homes near Hodeida.
‘The drumbeat of assaults on men, women and children is one that has become appallingly routine,’ it added.
A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition is weighed at a treatment centre in a hospital in the capital Sanaa on October 6, 2018. (Photo by MOHAMMED HUWAIS / AFP)MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty ImagesA Yemeni holds the legs of a child suffering from malnutrition at a treatment centre in a hospital in the capital Sanaa on October 6, 2018. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP)MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty ImagesA Yemeni physician holds the leg of a boy suffering from malnutrition at a treatment centre in a hospital in the capital Sanaa on October 6, 2018. (Photo by AFP)/AFP/Getty ImagesA malnourished child lies on a bed as his sister sleeps in a hammock at a hospital amid worsening malnutrition, in Sana’a, Yemen, 06 October 2018. According to reports, some 1.8 million Yemeni children are already malnourished and more than five million others are facing starvation as the ongoing conflict causes food and fuel prices to soar across in the war-torn and impoverished Arab country. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
The Saudi-led coalition has been locked in a stalemated war with the rebels since 2015.
An estimated 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has produced what the United Nations says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
With U.S. backing, the United Arab Emirates is leading an all-out offensive using local forces to take Hodeida, where the Houthis have dug in for a lengthy fight.
Thousands of civilians are caught in the middle, trapped by minefields and barrages of mortars and airstrikes.
If the array of Yemeni militias backed by the UAE takes the city, it would be their biggest victory against the rebels, although the battle on the Red Sea coast also threatens to throw Yemen into outright famine.
A Yemeni woman holds her malnourished child as he receives treatment at a hospital amid worsening malnutrition, in Sana’a, Yemen, 06 October 2018. According to reports, some 1.8 million Yemeni children are already malnourished and more than five million others are facing starvation as the ongoing conflict causes food and fuel prices to soar across in the war-torn and impoverished Arab country. EPA/YAHYA ARHABA Yemeni man carries his child who is suffering from malnutrition into a treatment centre at a hospital in the capital Sanaa on October 6, 2018. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP)MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty ImagesA Yemeni woman carries a malnourished child as she waits during food distribution in the province of Hodeida on May 30, 2018. – Hodeida port, Yemen’s largest entry point for aid, is now in the crosshairs of the Saudi-led coalition which is intent on cutting off the Huthi rebels from alleged Iranian arms shipments. The United Nations has warned that any operation aimed at seizing Hodeida itself would disrupt the entry of aid shipments to Yemen, 70 percent of which flow through the rebel-held port. (Photo by ABDO HYDER / AFP) (Photo credit should read ABDO HYDER/AFP/Getty Images)
