BEIRUT (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th July, 2020) Over half of Yemen's population, or about 15 million people, are in need of food aid and access to clean water in order to survive, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a video release.
According to information released by the Red Cross on Twitter, if the population of Yemen (currently around 30.5 million people) was 100 people, then 80 would need aid to survive, 66 would have "barely anything to eat," 64 would have no access to healthcare, while 58 would have no clean water and 11 would be severely malnourished.
Yemen is suffering from a massive humanitarian crisis considered by the United Nations to be the worst in the world. The country has been gripped by an internal conflict between government forces and the Houthi movement since 2015. A Saudi-led coalition has launched an air campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
A spokesperson of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) told Sputnik in May that the number of Yemeni children facing acute malnutrition might considerably increase from an already high figure of over two million in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, international donors pledged an additional $700 million to support humanitarian operations in Yemen for the rest of 2020, but, according to UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock, the total amount pledged ($1.35 billion) represents only about half of what was pledged last year and is also below the requested $2.4 billion of funding needed to keep aid programs running in the country.
As a result, water and sanitation programs serving four million Yemenis will start shutting down in several weeks, routine vaccinations for five million children will be halted, malnutrition programs will stop by August and the wider health program for 19 million people in Yemen will also be closed down, according to Lowcock.
