Conflict and Economic Collapse in War-torn Yemen Worsening Hunger Crisis

GENEVA - The World Food Program warns Yemen's already alarming hunger crisis is worsening due to ongoing conflict and a rapidly declining economy that are sending food prices soaring.  

Of Yemen's population of just over 29 million people, around 21 million need humanitarian assistance. The United Nations, which considers Yemen the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, reports 16.2 million people are extremely short of food and suffering from acute hunger.  Tobias Flaemig, the World Food Program head of Research, Assessment and Monitoring in Yemen, says people are resorting to desperate measures to survive, including cutting their food intake to just one meal a day.    "We recently visited a village where families were resorting to eating leaves to survive," he said via a video link from the capital Sanaa. "Traveling to work, to reach markets or even to seek medical care is almost impossible because the cost of fuel is too high. Hunger leaves people acutely vulnerable to the various public health risks facing the country, including COVID-19, cholera, dengue, malaria."