(MEMO) — The United Nations (UN) yesterday called for $4 billion emergency aid to cover humanitarian needs in Yemen.
“Yemen is on the brink of a major catastrophe,” the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Mark Lowcock, warned.
“But, it’s not too late,” Lowcock stressed, adding that the “conditions in Yemen have deteriorated alarmingly.”
“During my visit to Yemen, I met families outside Sana’a [Yemen’s capital] who fled their homes four years ago when conflict escalated and are still living in terrible conditions,” he explained.
“In Lahj, I visited an overcrowded camp that hosts hundreds of desperate families displaced by recent fighting in Hudaydah,” the UN official added.
Lowcock visited the war-wracked county on Saturday where he met with officials of the internationally-recognised government headquartered in the southern city of Aden and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Sana’a.
The more than three-year-long conflicts has driven major increases in severe hunger and malnutrition, leading to a humanitarian crisis that senior UN officials have called “the largest food security crisis in the world.”
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