While winter is a heavy guest on millions of Yemenis, especially in displacement camps where the number of people arriving has doubled due to Houthi attacks and climatic conditions, the United Nations has predicted that hunger and food shortages will expand during the next six months.

The UN report expected the level of acute food insecurity in Yemen to worsen during the period between the middle of this fall and next spring, with 20 percent of the population suffering from severe difficulty in obtaining food.

He explained that there are about 10.8 million people at the Integrated Interim Classification level for food insecurity, and 6.1 million people at the emergency level, which is the fourth stage of the classification.

According to what was stated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme, in their joint semi-annual periodic report on hunger hotspots in the world; Acute food insecurity in Yemen is expected to remain at critical levels during the forecast period extending between this November and next April.

Yemen is the fourth hotspot of hunger

The UN report attributed its expectations to the continuation of the conflict, the economic crisis, the lack of humanitarian funding, and climate changes, ranking Yemen fourth in the list of 18 hunger hotspots around the world, after the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Ethiopia in terms of the number of people suffering from acute food insecurity.

The report stated that the food security situation will witness a significant deterioration during the last quarter of this year, warning that the situation will continue to worsen until next December, with 20 percent of the population throughout Yemen suffering from serious food insecurity.

More than half a million Yemeni children under the age of five face the risk of acute malnutrition, including 456,000 children in the central and southern governorates, while more than 97,000 others suffer from severe acute malnutrition.

The report called for the need to take emergency measures to confront the rapid deterioration of food insecurity in Yemen, primarily providing $2.2 billion for food security and agriculture and $398 million for nutritional interventions, within the framework of the 2023 humanitarian response plan.

The two UN organizations stressed the need to provide livelihood support in emergency situations, stimulate economic recovery to increase the availability of food and safe access to it for the most vulnerable families, and provide food aid and malnutrition prevention services, while continuing to provide cash assistance to displaced persons, refugees and migrants.

Continuous displacement

A few days ago, the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs in Yemen (OCHA) warned that bad weather conditions during the winter threaten nearly a million people, most of whom are displaced people displaced by the war, and that families residing in certain areas in the governorates of Sana’a, Amran, Dhamar, Ibb, Al-Bayda, the capital, Sana’a, Al-Dhalea, and Saada. Marib has the highest risk of severe winter weather.

The United Nations International Organization for Migration also reported the displacement of 26,000 Yemenis within a week, and the number of displaced people has risen since the beginning of the year to more than 55,000 people, following Cyclone Tej, which struck the eastern governorates of the country.

Between the beginning of the year and the end of last month, the organization monitored the displacement of 9,187 families, including 55,122 individuals, and during the last week of this period, it tracked the displacement of 4,392 families, numbering 26,352 individuals, at least once.

Yemen is witnessing one of the largest internal displacement crises around the world, which has doubled the repercussions of the humanitarian crisis that the United Nations describes as the largest in the modern era in terms of the numbers of those affected. The current truce has not succeeded in alleviating this crisis due to the fears of the displaced about the return of military escalation or the practices of the Houthi group. .

UN authorities have warned of increasing food insecurity for Yemenis during the coming winter (United Nations)

A relief source in the Yemeni government believes that international organizations have failed to help the Yemenis and alleviate the humanitarian crisis that the country has been experiencing since the outbreak of war in 2015, and that they have marginalized the roles of government agencies, such as the Supreme Relief Committee, and turned them into coordination bodies only, and allocated large amounts of aid grants. For the benefit of its operating budget.

The source, who preferred to remain anonymous, accused international bodies of putting the dignity of displaced Yemenis at the bottom of their list of priorities, stressing that these bodies have ignored the warnings and demands of the Yemeni government since the start of the war, preferring to work in the capital, Sanaa, which is under the control of the Houthi group.

The result of this neglect - according to the official - was the situation of the Yemenis affected by the humanitarian crisis and the displaced, especially in the Houthi-controlled areas, where these parties carry out most of their activities.