Oxfam: Yemen will run out of food in months

Food in Yemen is expected to run out within a matter of months, Oxfam warned in a statement yesterday.

Prior to the onset of the ongoing war in the country, it imported 90 per cent of its food. The security situation in Yemen has meant getting food into the country has become increasingly difficult. The Saudi-led coalition has bombed ports and airports which have further hindered access to goods, as have sieges imposed on civilians by Houthi and Saleh forces.

In August, Oxfam had warned that the amount of food that was being imported into Yemen was below half the level needed to feed the 24 million people living in the war-torn country. This has remained low ever since

“Yemen is being slowly starved to death. First there were restrictions on imports – including much needed food – when this was partially eased the cranes in the ports were bombed, then the warehouses, then the roads and the bridges. This is not by accident – it is systematic,” Mark Goldring, the Oxfam GB chief executive, said.

Famine has hit various parts of Yemen, especially the Houthi and Saleh controlled port city of Al Hudaydah, where a third of the 370,000 starving children in Yemen live.

In addition to being under Houthi and Saleh control, Al Hudaydah is also subject to heavy bombardment from the Saudi-led coalition.

Yemen, which is the Arab world’s poorest country, has been wracked by chaos since late 2014, when the Houthi group overran its capital city Sana’a and other parts of the country.