EMIR OF QATAR ALLOCATES $100M TO SUPPORT YEMEN’S FOOD SECURITY

Fri 23 July 2021:

The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani has instructed his country’s authorities to allocate $100 million to stave off a famine in Yemen and support the United Nations’ efforts to maintain food security in the war-torn country.

“The Emir of the country has ordered the allocation of $100 million to endorse the efforts of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Yemen, support food security and prevent famine,” reported the Qatar News Agency (QNA) on Wednesday.

QNA explained that the funds would be allocated to back urgent UN relief and humanitarian programmes to alleviate the aggravating humanitarian tragedy in Yemen.

Doha has previously pledged $70 million to support the UN response plan in Yemen during the Yemen Donor Conference last March.

The UN has called on donor countries to donate $3.85 billion to fund humanitarian aid in Yemen in 2021, while emphasising that two-thirds of the population require assistance.

Yemen has been embroiled in a deadly civil war since September 2014 when Houthis overran all government institutions in Sana’a and gained control of the city, forcing the internationally recognised government of

Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi to resign. Hadi later returned to Aden in 2015.

Since then, the UN estimates at least 233,000 Yemenis have been killed; among them, 131,000 died from indirect causes like food insecurity, lack of healthcare, and medicine.

Nearly 25 million Yemenis remain in need of assistance.

Five million Yemenis are at risk of famine, with 50,000 people already living in famine-like conditions, and a cholera outbreak has affected over one million people.

It is estimated that more than 16 million people will go hungry this year due to the dire conditions that have been imposed on the country amid the ongoing war. About 400,000 Yemeni children below the age of five could die from acute malnutrition.

The UN has described the situation in Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

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