[Peace] WaPo: Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children are nearing starvation

[Robert Naiman]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/hundreds-
of-thousands-of-yemeni-children-are-nearing-starvatio
n/2017/02/23/f01ead8a-f850-11e6-aa1e-5f735ee31334_story.html

Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children are nearing starvation
By Sudarsan Raghavan February 24

CAIRO — Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children languishing in refugee
camps and remote villages are nearing starvation. Families who fled
airstrikes are being forced to return to war-shattered homes, risking their
lives again.

The United Nations and other humanitarian groups are describing alarming
scenes in the Middle East’s poorest country as a humanitarian crisis and
conflict deepen after nearly two years of war.

In recent weeks, clashes between rebels known as Houthis and forces loyal
to the U.S.-backed government have intensified, especially along the
western coast of the country. Airstrikes near a major port in the city of
Hodeida — the main entry point for food, medicine and humanitarian aid into
northern Yemen — have slowed the delivery of supplies and exacerbated the
misery.

Almost a half million children are severely acutely malnourished
<https://www.unicef.org/media/media_94893.html>, a nearly 200 percent
increase since 2014, the United Nations Children’s Fund said this week. The
United Nations described Yemen, along with Somalia and northern Nigeria, as
“on the brink of famine,” and declared that famine has already gripped
parts of South Sudan. In Yemen, more than 7.3 million people are in need of
urgent food assistance.

More than 1 million Yemenis have returned to their homes even as fighting
still rages in many of those areas, the U.N. refugee agency and the
International Organization for Migration reported.

“I am deeply concerned with the escalation of conflict and militarization
of Yemen’s Western Coast,” Jamie McGoldrick, the top U.N. humanitarian
official for Yemen, said in a rare, impassioned plea for assistance
<http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/statement-humanitarian-coordinator-yemen-jamie-mcgoldrick-impact-conflict-and-ongoing>
this
week. “It is coming at a great cost to civilians.”

Yemen’s growing crisis is likely to pose new challenges for the Trump
administration as it seeks to neutralize a potent al-Qaeda branch known as
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The group took advantage of the chaos
that followed Yemen’s Arab Spring revolts to seize large swaths of
territory and has expanded its reach since then.

The group’s strength was evident as its militants engaged in a fierce
firefight with U.S. forces that staged a raid on a remote village
controlled by al-Qaeda in Bayda province last month.

By the end of the assault
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/01/29/u-s-service-member-killed-in-yemen-raid-marks-first-combat-death-of-trump-administration/?utm_term=.6531a5015f0d>,
a Navy SEAL was dead and three other American troops were wounded. The
Trump administration hailed its first counterterrorism operation as a
victory, but regional analysts said it could help build support for AQAP,
which is better funded and equipped than at any point in its history.

AQAP and a nascent Islamic State affiliate in Yemen “are now actively
exploiting the changing political environment and governance vacuums to
recruit new members and stage new attacks and are laying the foundation for
terrorist networks that may last for years,” U.N. investigators wrote in a
report released last month.

The desperation among ordinary Yemenis is growing. The lack of employment
and basic services are forcing hundreds of thousands to return to their
homes, according to a report by UNHCR and IOM released this week.

“It’s a testament to how catastrophic the situation in Yemen has become,
that those displaced by the conflict are now returning home because life in
the areas to which they had fled for safety is just as abysmal as in the
areas from which they fled,” Ayman Gharaibeh, UNCHR’s Yemen representative,
said in a statement.

Many of the displaced have returned to homes in Aden, where AQAP and the
Islamic State routinely stage suicide bombings, and to Taiz, a key front
line of the war where snipers and shelling regularly kill civilians on the
streets. U.N. humanitarian officials say that at least 10,000 people have
been killed since the war began in March 2015.

“Over 17 million people are currently unable to adequately feed themselves
and are frequently forced to skip meals — women and girls eat the least and
last,” McGoldrick said. “Seven million Yemenis do not know where their next
meal will come from and are ever closer to starvation.”

There are now signs that the food insecurity will worsen.

Airstrikes by a U.S.-backed, Saudi-led regional coalition that is
supporting the Yemeni government have destroyed or damaged roads and
bridges across Hodeidah province. Unexploded rockets, McGoldrick added,
have landed inside the port, further reducing imports and the number of
ships willing to come to Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition, which is enforcing a blockade that is restricting
food imports, has told humanitarian agencies to redirect shipments to the
smaller port in Aden, he said. That means vital food and medicine will need
to be trucked from Aden, in the south, through war zones to reach the
millions at risk of starvation in the north.

Meanwhile, food and fuel prices are rising, and hundreds of thousands of
government employees have not been paid in months.

McGoldrick called on Yemen’s warring factions and “those that have
influence over the parties” to ensure that food quickly enters the country.

“The best means to prevent famine in Yemen is for weapons to fall silent
across the country and for the parties to the conflict to return to the
negotiating table,” he said.
===

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1 <(202)%20448-2898>
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