UN Appeals for $4.3 Bn to Help Millions in War-torn Yemen

Yemeni children attend class outdoors in a heavily damaged school on the first day of the new academic year in Yemen's war-torn western province of Hodeida on October 17, 2022. Khaled Ziad, AFP
Yemeni children attend class outdoors in a heavily damaged school on the first day of the new academic year in Yemen's war-torn western province of Hodeida on October 17, 2022. Khaled Ziad, AFP
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UN Appeals for $4.3 Bn to Help Millions in War-torn Yemen

Yemeni children attend class outdoors in a heavily damaged school on the first day of the new academic year in Yemen's war-torn western province of Hodeida on October 17, 2022. Khaled Ziad, AFP
Yemeni children attend class outdoors in a heavily damaged school on the first day of the new academic year in Yemen's war-torn western province of Hodeida on October 17, 2022. Khaled Ziad, AFP

The United Nations said it needed $4.3 billion this year to help millions of people in war-ravaged Yemen, ahead of a donors' conference on Monday.

Aid agencies need the money to help more than 17 million people in the country, which has been devastated by an eight-year civil war, said AFP.

The conflict has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and plunged the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula into one of the world's worst humanitarian tragedies.

Yemen is also at the forefront of the climate crisis, with severe drought and flooding threatening lives, the UN said.

It acknowledged that "record global humanitarian needs are stretching donor support like never before".

"But without sustained support for the aid operation in Yemen, the lives of millions of Yemenis will hang in the balance, and efforts to end the conflict once and for all will become even more challenging," it said in a statement.

A truce that began on April 2 last year expired on October 2.

UN chief Antonio Guterres, who will attend Monday's donor conference in Geneva, said the international community had "the power and the means to end this crisis".

"And it begins by funding our appeal fully and committing to disbursing funds quickly," he said in the statement.

Last year, the UN raised more than $2.2 billion to enable aid agencies to reach nearly 11 million people across the country every month.



UN Investigator Says Israel Still Conducting ‘Starvation Campaign’ in Gaza

Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (Reuters)
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UN Investigator Says Israel Still Conducting ‘Starvation Campaign’ in Gaza

Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (Reuters)

The UN independent investigator on the right to food insisted Israel is still conducting “a starvation campaign” in Gaza, despite its delivery of over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food to the territory since it launched its military operation a year ago.

Michael Fakhri told reporters Friday that food is not calories and Palestinians have not gotten adequate food or calories.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, recently warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within 30 days or it could risk losing access to US weapons funding.

Fakhri said: “Based on a year-long starvation campaign and a 24-year blockade and siege, allowing a few more trucks to enter in now does not actually address the humanitarian needs.”

“But most importantly, what Israel is saying contradicts everything every humanitarian organization is saying now, and has been saying,” he said.

Fakhri said humanitarian officials call Israel’s rules on what is allowed into Gaza “opaque and absurd.”

Convoys that make it through are often shot at and targeted by Israeli forces despite coordination with Israeli authorities, he said. “And then even if those convoys get past that, civilians seeking aid have been shot at and killed several times.”

Israel’s UN Mission did not respond to a request for comment on Fakhri’s press conference.