Angelina Jolie: Situation in Yemen ‘heartbreaking, infuriating’

Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie, yesterday described the situation in Yemen as “heartbreaking and infuriating”.

Jolie made the remarks in a statement delivered at the high-level pledging event on the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen held under the UN auspices and in cooperation with the governments of Switzerland and Sweden.

Jolie said she visited Yemen ten days ago in order to meet some of the four million people displaced by the conflict.

“I visited one informal settlement that was home to 130 families. Only 20 of them receiving any food aid at all – and then, it was only when funding is available, I visited a makeshift school, it was made up of five small, dark rooms. The children sitting on the floor and they hadn’t eaten. Nor had the teacher,” she said.

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“So, it is heartbreaking. It is infuriating. And above all, because this is a man-made crisis that must be ended,” she said.

Yesterday, the United Nations announced that it had received financial pledges from 36 donors worth $1.3 billion out of $4.27 billion it says it needs for its humanitarian plan in Yemen for 2022.

For over seven years, Yemen has been witnessing a continuous war between forces loyal to the legitimate government, backed by an Arab military coalition led by neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian-backed Houthis, who have controlled governorates, including the capital, Sanaa, since September 2014.

As of the end of 2021, the war claimed 377,000 lives and cost Yemen’s economy $126 billion in losses, according to the UN. Most of the country’s population, about 30 million, became dependent on aid, in what has been described as one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.