UN: Nearly 400,000 children facing starvation in war-torn Yemen

NEW YORK, OCT 12: According to the United Nations, almost 400,000 children are facing starvation in war-torn Yemen.

After around seven years of conflict, 20 million people - two-thirds of the population - need help, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, David Gressly, said on Monday.

An expansion of the conflict has made the situation even worse for countless people, especially in the south of the country. The worst humanitarian crisis in the world is raging in Yemen, Gressly said.

The country has been roiled by a devastating power struggle between a Saudi-backed government and the Iran-linked Houthi rebels since late 2014.

The conflict of more than six years in Yemen has pushed the country, one of the poorest in the Arab world, to the brink of famine and caused huge damage to health facilities.

Gressly said only about 2.1 billion dollars of the approximately 3.8 billion dollars calculated in March for humanitarian aid for the population had been received.

Serious efforts to find a political solution to the conflict were making progress, Gressly said. But reconstruction could not wait until a ceasefire. The world must not allow a whole generation to grow up knowing nothing but conflict.

People needed work, the fishing industry had to be revived, the ports and airports had to be opened, Gressly said.

Civil servants must be paid enough so that they do not also fall into poverty. For this, too, the economy must be stimulated to find the resources to pay them.

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COURTESY Anews

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