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UN Struggles to Feed Millions Starving in War-Torn Yemen

UN Struggles to Feed Millions Starving in War-Torn Yemen

Yemen has been in a civil war since the beginning of 2015 that has led to such a severe shortage of food resources that millions of people need assistance with food.

Since February, the U.N. World Food Programme has given food to more than 3 million people per month in Yemen. Recently, it divided the amount of food each family would get so that they could reach 6 million people per month. However, the UN fears that they are running out of the resources needed to have this much of an impact.

The Yemen World Food Programme director, Torben Due, said in a statement:

We need to scale up our life-saving assistance to reach more people with timely food assistance and preventive treatment. We appeal to the international community to support the people of Yemen. … We need to provide a full ration to every family in need, but sadly we have had to reduce the size of the food basket and split assistance between impoverished families to meet growing needs.

Prior to the conflict, Yemen had one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world, according to the statement. Malnutrition rates for children under 5 were double the emergency threshold and nearly half of the children are currently irreversibly stunted.

As of June, 14.1 million people in Yemen were food insecure, and 7 million of them were “severely” food insecure.
###How You Can Help
WFP says they need $257 million to continue having an impact through March 2017. You can donate here.

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