Organisations including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and World Food Programme (WFP) are once again raising alarm over hunger and insecurity in Yemen—this time on the basis of the results of IPC Acute malnutrition analysis for January to July 2020, which reveal that acute malnutrition rates among children under five-years-old are the highest ever recorded. It has become difficult to assess whether it is hunger, natural disasters, cholera, dengue, or COVID-19 that causes death in Yemen. The urgency of treatment and equipment needed for an already-exhausted population is emphasised by several factors: violent conflict, fragmentation of the territory, fragile healthcare and food systems, effects of the pandemic on the economy, and substantial downturn in humanitarian funding are all playing a significant role.
PRECARIOUS ACCESS TO BASIC SERVICES
Yemen continues to crumble under the weight of its troubles. According to UNICEF, 12.2 million Yemeni children are currently in need of humanitarian support. The analysis quoted by UN agencies covering 133 districts (out of 333) clearly states that over half a million children under five and more than a quarter-million pregnant and nursing women will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, with a significant deterioration between August and December.
The major contributing factors to severe under-nutrition and illness in the studied regions of Yemen include: poor quality and poor diversity of foods, acute food insecurity, and skyrocketing food prices. The analysis also highlights poor infant and young child feeding practices, high prevalence of communicable diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria, respiratory infections, poor sanitation, and poor immunisation coverage—especially against measles and polio.
Access to life-saving services has been hindered by a number of causes, such as flooding, COVID-19 travel restrictions, conflict, fear of contracting diseases when visiting health facilities, and suspension of some mobile and outreach services. Lack of humanitarian access due to ongoing fighting also remains a critical challenge hampering the delivery of any type of assistance.
WHEN DESTRUCTION RHYMES WITH STARVATION
Human rights organisation Mwatana for Human Rights has reported that almost a third of all airstrikes carried out—supposedly to protect the Yemeni population—actually hit civilian sites, killing and wounding more than 18,000 civilians. The attacks (whether from Saudi/UAE-led coalition, Iran-backed-Houthis, or other local factions) have left Yemen’s health system shattered, as both medical facilities and medical personnel have been targeted. On top of struggling through unimaginable working conditions, health workers have been threatened, injured, abducted, detained, and killed. As a result, many medical professionals are attempting to flee Yemen, further damaging the healthcare response.
Worryingly, warring parties in the area have additionally resorted to starvation as a weapon of war. Intentionally using the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival is a war crime under the Rome Statute (article 8.2.b.xxv). And yet, numerous offensives matching this description have been recorded, including, but not limited to: deliberate obstruction of humanitarian access, air and ground attacks on means of food production and food distribution (public markets, farms, livestock, fishing boats, food warehouses, water wells), and the use of landmines in agricultural fields and valleys.
HUMANITARIAN FUNDING
Before COVID-19, about 80% of the total 29 million Yemenis were already in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Today, many aid projects including emergency food assistance and water and sanitation services (WASH) have been disrupted by funding shortfalls. Malnutrition treatment programmes are also at risk if additional funds are not received soon.
Oxfam warned that donor funding has plummeted, falling shorter of its targets than at any point since the conflict escalated in 2015. 16 of the UN’s 41 major programmes have already been reduced or shut down and 26 more are expected to close by the end of the year unless additional funding is received.
While the European Union continues to provide humanitarian aid to Yemen—€554 million since 2015—it has made limited efforts to suspend arms sales to warring parties. Some EU states have halted or reduced exports of military equipment to the coalition, although others have not been able to decide between being an aid donor or an arms dealer (namely France, the United Kingdom, and on a larger scale the US and Canada). These countries are deliberately disregarding international law, the lives of millions of people, and their very own efforts. This also creates an ethical dilemma for humanitarian agencies, especially when it comes to Saudi Arabia and UAE—two of the leading parties in the conflict and among Yemen’s top humanitarian donors.
Soon entering its seventh year of persistent violence, the Yemen war shows no signs of abating. Food insecurity is verging on famine and causing the irreversible loss of an entire generation of children. With the global outbreak of COVID-19, every country is looking inwards, but for Yemen accountability for the persistent conflict, including from outside its borders, has yet to appear.
Inès is a lawyer-linguist currently working independently in the fields of translation and multilingual analysis. She studied in France and the UK (Sorbonne Law School, University of Sheffield, ISIT Paris) and holds an MA in International studies and sustainable development, a diploma in legal translation and an MA in Public International Law and International Administration. Passionate about climate justice and human rights, she wrote her thesis on the role of non-state actors in the governance of global public goods and a research paper on the links between conflicts and climate change. Before providing freelance services, Inès worked for a climate-protection-NGO, a communication agency and UNESCO’s Priority Africa and External Relations department.