UN Says Forced to Cut Yemen Rations, Compounding Food Crisis

AFP
AFP
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UN Says Forced to Cut Yemen Rations, Compounding Food Crisis

AFP
AFP

More than four million Yemenis will receive less food assistance as a result of funding shortages, compounding one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, the UN's food agency warned Friday.

The World Food Program said "a deeper funding crisis for its Yemen operations from the end of September onward... will force WFP to make difficult decisions about further cuts to our food assistance programs across the country in the coming months."

Without new funding, it expects more than four million people will receive less food assistance, many of them women and children already suffering from some of the highest malnutrition rates in the world.

With major cuts announced across different programs, the actual number of people affected could be higher, AFP reported.

"We are confronted with the incredibly  tough reality of making decisions to take food from the hungry to feed the starving," said Richard Ragan, WFP's Yemen representative.

The UN agency was "fully cognisant of the suffering these cuts will cause", he said in a statement.

Seventeen million Yemenis are experiencing food insecurity, and one million women and 2.2 million children under five require treatment for acute malnutrition, the UN says.

For the next six months, WFP said it requires $1.05 billion in funding, only 28 percent of which has been secured.

"Yemen will remain one of WFP's largest food assistance operations, but these cuts represent a significant reduction to the agency's programs in the country," it said.

"The funding shortages are happening at a time of more people becoming severely malnourished."

The World Food Program was forced to slash food aid for 13 million Yemenis by more than 50 percent in June last year because of a funding squeeze.



UN Refugee Agency Expects 1 Million Syrians to Return

Trucks carrying the belongings of Syrian refugees move along a road from a camp in Arsal in eastern Lebanon on their way back to Syria on December 16, 2024. (Photo by Nidal SOLH / AFP)
Trucks carrying the belongings of Syrian refugees move along a road from a camp in Arsal in eastern Lebanon on their way back to Syria on December 16, 2024. (Photo by Nidal SOLH / AFP)
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UN Refugee Agency Expects 1 Million Syrians to Return

Trucks carrying the belongings of Syrian refugees move along a road from a camp in Arsal in eastern Lebanon on their way back to Syria on December 16, 2024. (Photo by Nidal SOLH / AFP)
Trucks carrying the belongings of Syrian refugees move along a road from a camp in Arsal in eastern Lebanon on their way back to Syria on December 16, 2024. (Photo by Nidal SOLH / AFP)

A UN refugee agency official said on Tuesday that some 1 million Syrian refugees are expected to return to the country in the first six months of 2025, asking countries to refrain from forced returns.

"Now we have forecasted that we hope to see somewhere in the order of 1 million Syrians returning between January and June next year so we shared this plan with donors, asking for their support," said Rema Jamous Imseis, UNHCR Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

She said that thousands of people had fled Syria this month as opposition fighters seized power from President Bashar al-Assad, while thousands had also returned to the country mostly from Türkiye, Lebanon and Jordan.