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ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳Chief warns UN Security Council of imminent famine in Yemen

Photo: WFP/ Alaa Noman
NEW YORK ¨C The ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ (WFP) Executive Director, David Beasley, addressed United Nations Security Council today on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Here are selected highlights from his remarks:

¡°We¡¯re facing famine in Yemen¡­.there¡¯s 16 million innocent victims of this unnecessary man-made war, struggling to get food every single day. Eleven million are IPC level 3, which means they¡¯re at a crisis level. 5 million are at emergency level and 50,000 are in famine-like conditions.¡±

¡°We¡¯re running out of money as we speak¡­ we need about US$ 860 million just to avert famine. And that¡¯s for six months. We don¡¯t even have half that. That means we¡¯re going to have to cut the rations which we now have, which is 9 million people that we are feeding.¡±

¡°We¡¯re struggling now to feed 13 million people.  And if we¡¯re struggling with 13 million people, and we don¡¯t have the money, and the access and the tools that we need, then what do you think¡¯s going to happen?  Well I can give you a pretty clear picture: we anticipate 80 percent of the population of Yemen to immediately start moving into classification 3, 4 and 5. How are they going to get food? How are they going to get fuel? How are they going to get medicine?  It is going to be a catastrophe...we're going to have a catastrophe on our hands.¡±

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The United Nations ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.  We are the world¡¯s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

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Topics

Yemen Conflicts Emergencies Food Security

Contact

For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):

Annabel Symington, WFP/Yemen,

Tel. +44 7746397099

Abeer Etefa, WFP/Cairo,

Tel. +20 106 6663 4352

Martin Penner, WFP/ Rome,

Mob. +39 345 614 2074



Tomson Phiri, WFP/ Geneva,

Mob. +41 79 842 8057

Jane Howard, WFP/ London,

Tel. +44 (0)20 3857 7413, Mob. +44 (0)796 8008 474



Shaza Moghraby, WFP/New York,

Mob. + 1 929 289 9867

Steve Taravella, WFP/ Washington,

Mob.  +1 202 770 5993