Conflict in Yemen has triggered food insecurity in the poverty-stricken country. The Food and Agriculture Organisation said recently: Amidst escalating conflict at a crucial time in the country’s cropping season, almost 11 million people in Yemen are severely food insecure and millions more are at risk of not meeting their basic food needs. Governorates in the far northwest and south are most severely affected by food insecurity, and around 850,000 children are acutely malnourished.
On the other hand, citing the United Nations envoy who mediated the Yemen peace talks a news exposes a fact: Yemen’s warring political factions were on the verge of a power-sharing deal when Saudi-led air strikes began a month ago, derailing the negotiations.
The latest FAO-assessment of the food situation in Yemen said:
Increasing conflict in nearly all major towns across Yemen is disrupting markets and trade, driving up local food prices and hampering agricultural production, including land preparation and planting for the 2015 maize and sorghum harvests.
In a news release by FAO said:
10.6 million Yemenis are now severely food insecure, of which 4.8 million are facing “emergency” conditions, suffering from severe lack of food access, very high and increasing malnutrition, and irreversible destruction of livelihoods. More than half of Yemen’s population – some 16 million out of a total of 26 million — is in need of some form of humanitarian aid and has no access to safe water.