U.N. Aid Chief: $4 Billion Needed to Avert “worst famine the world has seen in decades” in Yemen

By PFW News

United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock has appealed for about $4 billion in 2021 to fund humanitarian operations, warning on Thursday that “Yemen is speeding towards the worst famine the world has seen in decades,” reports Reuters.

Lowcock’s warning comes only a few short months after head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, revealed the amount of people around the world now on the brink of starvation has doubled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic effects of government reactions to the virus.

As we highlighted in December, Beasley, who previously warned that the “cure” for the COVID-19 pandemic should not be worse than the disease, told the United Nations General Assembly that 270 million people are now “marching towards starvation” in wake of the economic effects of the pandemic.

“As I had warned the United Nations Security council back in April, that if we’re not careful the cure could be worse than the disease because of the economic ripple effect – if we don’t handle economic disruptions, supply chain disruptions, etc.,” Beasley told the council.

“As we predicted back in April, the number of people that were going to be marching toward the brink of starvation had already risen from 80 million to 135 million the last four years, primarily because of man made conflict,” the director went on, adding:

But because of COVID it’s now spiking from 135 million people – not going to bed hungry now, [but] literally marching towards starvation – to 270 million people.

Beasley expressed a bleak outlook for 2021 as he believes it is going to be “catastrophic based on what we’re seeing at this stage of the game.”

He stated that “because we’ve spent $19 trillion, that money may not, and will not most likely be available for 2021” as economic contractions outpace the ability to supply a lifeline to those who are starving.

UN aid chief Lowcock has also warned this week that the recent offensive on the central city of Marib by the Houthis armed militia in Yemen could create a humanitarian crisis in and of itself.

“An assault on the city would put 2 million civilians at risk, with hundreds of thousands potentially forced to flee — with unimaginable humanitarian consequences. Now is the time to de-escalate, not to add even more to the misery of the Yemeni people,” the Lowcock said Tuesday.

Source: Planet Free Will

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