Saudi Arabia fought the Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2015, at the head of a regional coalition backed by, among others, the United States and Britain.

The coalition has since carried out more than 24,000 air strikes and left much of Yemen’s infrastructure in rubble. Hospitals, schools and water and electricity supplies have been attacked, and several years ago the United Nations described Yemen as the worst humanitarian crisis of our time.

In UN report concluded several months ago that the war at the turn of the year had claimed 377,000 lives, 4 million people were forced to flee and attacks continued.

Hungry to sleep

17.4 million of Yemen’s 29 million people currently live on the brink of starvation, and in a few months the number may rise to 19 million.

Yemen’s 2.2 million children are all malnourished, and for 538,000 of them the situation is critical. The situation could be the same for the 1.3 million women in at-risk groups, according to the United Nations.

“More and more children are sleeping hungry in Yemen,” said Catherine Russell, head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Serious food shortages and malnutrition mean that children are not developing as they should, something they will have to suffer for the rest of their lives, he said.

Getting worse

– The humanitarian situation in the country will get worse between June and December, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) declared and declared that the country was on the verge of total disaster.

“These horrific numbers confirm that we are now counting down to a disaster in Yemen, and time is too short to avoid it,” said World Food Program leader David Beasley.

– If we don’t receive significant new funding soon, it will lead to mass yields and starvation, he said.

Ukrainian War

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s largest wheat producers, would further accelerate the disaster, the United Nations has warned.

Yemen is completely dependent on outside food aid, and about half of WFP’s previous grain supply came from Ukraine and Russia.

On Wednesday, the United Nations organization held an international donors conference for Yemen, with the hope that the countries of the world will realize its seriousness and come to the rescue of the country and its people.

– We must act now, said the UN coordinator for humanitarian assistance to Yemen, David Gressly.