Yemen: price of bread up 35% due to Ukraine war, says Oxfam

The international aid agency Oxfam said today that bread prices in Yemen have risen by up to 35 per cent since the start of the war in Ukraine, Anadolu has reported. The NGO pointed out that Yemen imports 42 per cent of its grain from Ukraine, but supplies have been disrupted by the Russian invasion and war, which started on 24 February.

“In Sanaa,” said Oxfam, “bread went up 35 per cent over the week that fighting broke out.” The human cost of the war in Yemen itself, it added, is rising sharply as the conflict enters its eighth year. “The number of civilian deaths has increased sharply, hunger is on the rise and three quarters of the population are in urgent need of humanitarian support.”

Yemen’s fuel crisis has also worsened. “Prices have risen 543 per cent since 2019, trebling in just the last three months. Queues at petrol stations are so long that it can take three days to reach the forecourt.”

The UN is set to launch an appeal for an aid package worth $4.3 billion to help over 17 million people in Yemen, which has been engulfed by violence and instability since 2014. That’s when Iran-aligned Houthis captured much of the country, including the capital Sanaa. A coalition led by Saudi Arabia entered the war in 2015 in an effort to curb Iran’s influence in the area.

The conflict has created one of the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crises. According to the latest UN estimates, around 23.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection, and more than 19 million are in danger of starvation.

READ: The wheat crisis in the Arab world is exemplified by Egypt