Blockade could push Yemen into "humanitarian catastrophe"

13/12/2017 6:20

        As Yemen
        teeters on the brink of famine, with soaring food prices and
        fuel shortages, humanitarians called on Tuesday for the easing
        of a Saudi blockade to allow in life-saving supplies.
        
        Although the military coalition fighting the Iran-aligned
        Houthi movement in Yemen's civil war has eased its month-long
        blockade of ports, 8.4 million Yemenis are a step away from
        famine, the United Nations (U.N.) said on Monday.
        
        "We are trying to help prevent a famine from occurring,"
        Stephen Anderson, Yemen country director for the World Food
        Programme (WFP) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Tuesday.
        
        "We will have a large-scale humanitarian catastrophe of a
        much larger magnitude than we currently face if commercial
        vessels carrying food and fuel can't get in. It will be beyond
        the control of the humanitarian community."
        
        The coalition introduced the blockade to stop Iran sending
        weapons to its Houthi allies through Yemen's main Hodeidah port,
        where most food supplies enter. Iran has denied supplying arms.
        
        WFP, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and
        the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told the
        Thomson Reuters Foundation the blockade has eased.
        
        "Some commercial vessels are going in but it is not
        enough," said Anderson.
        
        "Our worry is the prices ... People spend 70 percent of
        their income on food ... How will they make ends meet?"
        
        Yemen, a nation of 28 million people, imports more than 85
        percent of its food and medicine.
        
        Problems are particularly acute in hospitals, which rely on
        fuel to run generators, medical charities say.
        
        "It is layer on top of layer of challenges for the people in
        Yemen," Djoen Besselink, MSF's head of mission said by phone
        from the capital, Sanaa.
        
        "It is survival mode."
        
        The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced
        more than 2 million and triggered a cholera epidemic that has
        infected about 1 million people.
        
        "People are trying to adapt but it is so hard on them," said
        Adnan Hizam, a spokesman for ICRC in Yemen, in emailed comments.
        
        "Medical and relief assistance are massively needed."