OCHA: “More than one-third of Yemeni people are suffering from extreme poverty”

The United Nations said that Yemen will exceed Syria in terms of the need for humanitarian assistance for the first time in 2019.

A report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said  that the international organization needs more than 4 billion dollars to provide basic aid to Yemen in 2019, compared to 3.5 billion to Syria.

The report added that the situation in Yemen has deteriorated significantly, and is growing rapidly. It pointed out that most of the population face a deficit in food supplies .

The report pointed out that more than one-third of the country’s 24 million people are suffering from extreme poverty.

Some 85,000 children may have already died in Yemen, and 12 million more people may be on the brink of starvation, casualties in part of the four-year-old American-backed Saudi war in Yemen. United Nations officials and aid experts warn that this could become the worst famine the world has seen in a generation.

Both the Obama and Trump administrations have supported the Saudi war on Yemen with a military partnership, arms sales, intelligence sharing and until recently air-to-air refueling.