'Harrowing figures': Yemen report says 161K to face famine
ABC News
More than a dozen U.N. agencies and international aid groups say that 161,000 people in war-torn Yemen are likely to experience famine over the second half of 2022
CAIRO -- More than a dozen U.N. agencies and international aid groups said Monday that 161,000 people in war-torn Yemen are likely to experience famine over the second half of 2022 — a fivefold increase from the current figure.
The stark warning came in a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, ahead of an annual fund-raising conference that the United Nations is hosting on Wednesday. The IPC is a global partnership of 15 U.N. agencies and humanitarian organizations working in Yemen and funded by the European Union, the USAID and UKAID. It tracks and measures food insecurity in conflict-stricken regions.
The report underscores the dire situation in the poorest Arab nation that plunged into civil war for in 2014, when Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed at the time by the U.S., in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government to power. The war has deteriorated largely into a stalemate and caused one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
