Crisis that has Yemen on brink of famine is a ‘man-made disaster’: UN

The crisis in Yemen that has left millions hungry and on the brink of famine is “a man-made disaster” driven not only by decades of poverty and lack of investment but also by economic strangulation being used as a tactic of war, the UN development chief in the country said Tuesday.

Auke Lootsma said “there is no end in sight” to Yemen’s civil war and about 70 per cent of the country’s 27 million people need humanitarian aid, 60 per cent don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and nearly 7 million “are close to slipping into a state of famine.”

In addition, he said, the UN has recorded almost 400,000 cases of cholera and nearly 1,900 related deaths in the past four months – and in the last two weeks there has been a meningitis outbreak.