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UN warns that 16 million will suffer hunger in Yemen as war continues

SOME 16 million people in Yemen will suffer from hunger this year, United Nations spokesman Mark Lowcock warned today, as the humanitarian crisis caused by Saudi bombing continues to unfold.

The UN emergency relief co-ordinator said that 50,000 people are already starving to death, while five million more are just one step away.

Last week, the UN and aid agencies reported that 400,000 Yemeni children under five could die of starvation this year without urgent intervention, amid soaring rates of severe malnutrition driven by war and Covid-19.

They projected a 22 per cent increase in severe acute malnutrition among children under five in Yemen, compared with 2020.

“These numbers are yet another cry for help from Yemen, where each malnourished child also means a family struggling to survive,” World Food Programme executive director David Beasley said in a joint statement with the Food & Agriculture Organisation, Unicef and the World Health Organisation.

Another 2.3 million under-fives are expected to suffer acute malnutrition in 2021, according to reports.

Yemen has suffered six years of bombing by a Saudi-led coalition — with weapons and military support from Britain, France and the United States — as it wages war against Houthi rebels who ousted the country’s government.

The new US administration of President Joe Biden has sent mixed messages over the conflict, initially insisting that it would pull back from support for the Saudi intervention and pausing some arms sales. 

But last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to contradict this approach, offering his backing to the reactionary Gulf kingdom after a Houthi drone attack on a civilian airport.

“Saudi Arabia is an important security partner. We won’t stand by while the Houthis attack Saudi Arabia.

“We remain committed to bolstering Saudi Arabia’s defences and finding a political settlement to the conflict in Yemen,” he said.

The Biden administration has reversed former president Donald Trump’s decision to designate the Houthi movement as a terrorist organisation, a change which Mr Lowcock agreed was necessary to allow aid to flow back into the war-stricken country.

Washington insists that it will continue to apply pressure on the Houthis, who it sees as fighting a proxy war for regional dominance on behalf of Iran.

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