One third of Yemen’s 23 million people struggle to find food, UN reports

One out of every three people in Yemen is struggling to gain access to food, making it one of the countries worst affected by hunger in the world, with 12 per cent of the population of some 23 million suffering from severe food insecurity, the United Nations reported today.

One in every 10 children is acutely malnourished and a quarter of all women of child-bearing age are malnourished, according to the survey by the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

Yemen has recently been faced with a series of humanitarian challenges, including conflict in its north, an influx of refugees from the Horn of Africa and an increase in the poverty rate.

WFP is currently providing food assistance to 1.5 million people every month, including a quarter of a million people displaced by the fighting in the north pitting the Government against the Al Houthi rebel movement.

As part of the humanitarian aid effort, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) earlier this week approved a nearly $5 million bridging loan to continue providing life-saving assistance to some 250,000 civilians who have been uprooted since clashes erupted in 2004.