UN humanitarian chief on Thursday warned of an appalling famine in Yemen unless the current air, sea and land blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition was lifted.
Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told reporters about the issue after he briefed Security Council on the situation in Yemen.
He said “it will not be like the famine that we saw in South Sudan earlier this year when tens of thousands of people were affected. It will not be like the famine that caused 250,000 lives in Somalia in 2011.
“It will be the largest famine the world hasn’t seen for many decades, with millions of victims.”
Lowcock asked for immediate steps to mitigate the imminent humanitarian disaster, including resumption of flights by the UN and its partners to Yemeni cities Sanaa and Aden and assurances that the air services would not be disrupted.
He also asked for agreement on pre-positioning of World Food Programme vessel in the waters off Aden and assurances that its functions would not be disrupted.
He called for resumption of humanitarian and commercial access to all seaports of Yemen, especially for essential supplies and scaling back of interference with all vessels that passed UN verification and inspection so that they could proceed to ports in Yemen as rapidly as possible.
Lowcock, who visited Yemen at the end of October, was asked to brief the Security Council, which held closed-door meeting over Yemen at the request of the Swedish Mission to the UN.
Before the briefing, Carl Skau, Deputy Permanent Representative of Sweden to the UN, noted Yemen faces the worst humanitarian situation in the world.
About seven million Yemenis are on the verge of famine, and 21 million people need humanitarian assistance.
There are also almost one million cases of cholera, he said.
“I don’t even want to imagine what the consequences would be should the current closure continue,’’ Skau told reporters.
After the briefing, Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi of Italy, president of the Security Council for this month, said the council was concerned about “the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen.’’
The Security Council stressed the need to keep all seaports and airports functioning, including the seaport of Al Hudaydah, a critical lifeline for humanitarian aid and other essential supplies, Cardi told reporters.
The council demanded that parties provide “full, safe, rapid and unhindered access’’ for humanitarian supplies and UN personnel to all affected governorates in the war-torn country, he said.
Yemen has been in civil war since 2015, pitting Sanaa-based Houthi forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against forces of the incumbent government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, based in Aden.
A Saudi-led coalition uses airstrikes to restore the Hadi government.
Cardi said the Security Council condemned Saturday’s missile attack against the Saudi capital Riyadh, which Saudi Arabia claims was launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The missile, which allegedly targeted a densely populated area in the city, was shot down.
The United States indicated that the missile, together with the one launched by the Houthis into Saudi Arabia in July, might be of Iranian origin, and demanded action on Iran from the UN.
Cardi said that the provision of weapons to Houthis in Yemen violates UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
He said the council supported a political solution to the Yemeni issue and asked all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law.
