Oxfam warns of major Yemen relief crisis Wednesday, 01 February 2012 14:56

DUBAI:Oxfam's country director in Yemen has said that relief efforts to stave off a food crisis are severely underfunded, risking a major humanitarian crisis in one of the world's poorest countries.

"We are very concerned on two fronts: the increasing levels of humanitarian need, and the level of funding and attention that it's getting," Oxfam's Colette Fearon told AFP in Dubai.

Fearon said the 2012 Consolidated Appeal for relief funds, which includes the financial needs of all major aid organisations working in Yemen, is so far "only 12 percent funded."

The appeal calls for some "half a billion dollars... to reach 3.7 million people," and these constitute only half the number of people the humanitarian community in Yemen believe are actually in need of assistance, said Fearon.

Aid agencies expect the situation to get worse throughout the year unless relief efforts are sufficiently funded.

"People for months now have been resorting to coping mechanisms, going to bed hungry," said Fearon.

"If aid does not come, it will be a major crisis... We'd be looking at a much more difficult humanitarian situation. People would have descended so far, it won't be nearly as easy for them to recover."

Recent UN figures have shown "very worrying levels of malnutrition, especially among children," and the crisis has now spread to Yemenis living in non-conflict areas as well, she added.

In September, Oxfam released a report warning of "widespread hunger and chronic malnutrition taking hold in Yemen," and warned of an impending "calamity" if the international community does not immediately step up relief efforts in the Arab world's poorest nation.

In December, UN agencies warned that Yemen was on its way to becoming another Somalia, saying nearly four million people will be affected by the political and economic crisis that has plagued the country since mass protests demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh's ouster erupted in January 2011.

Despite improvements in the security situation in the capital Sanaa since Saleh signed the Gulf-sponsored transition plan in November and handed power to the vice president, much of Yemen remains insecure, further complicating the delivery of aid to those most in need.

Abyan province in the south, where government troops are battling Al-Qaeda affiliated militants, is mostly off-limits to international aid workers, and is becoming increasingly dangerous for local aid agencies.

The conflict there has already displaced more than 90,000 Yemenis, according to the latest UN figures.

According to Fearon, "large proportions of the population have been in a long and deepening crisis."

She said that for months, people have been drawing on what remains of their minimal resources and that now those resources "have been depleted." AFP