A new analysis of the last quarter of this year has shown that 13.5 million people in Yemen face acute food insecurity, including 16,500 people already living in famine conditions.[1] These numbers are likely to increase in the first half of 2021 when more than half of Yemen’s population move into crisis levels of food insecurity. The number of those facing famine could almost triple, according to estimations.

The prolonged conflict  has driven food insecurity to extreme levels. More and more people are being uprooted due to intensifying violence in parts of the country as unemployment rates continue to soar. Food prices are increasingly out of the reach for  large parts of the population due to the continuous depreciation of the Yemeni Riyal.

SANA’A, 14 October 2020 – After almost six years of war, Yemen’s economic ecosystem has been decimated, leaving up to 20 million people food insecure. The combination of armed conflict, COVID-19, and the lack of foreign currency and salary payments has created a precarious situation in which the majority of the population would not be able to survive without humanitarian assistance.

“Economic factors have a direct and devastating impact on the availability and affordability of food,” says Aaron Brent, CARE Yemen Country Director. “Food prices have been rising throughout 2020, adding to the misery of families who were already struggling. “We are seeing an increase in negative coping strategies including selling personal possessions like clothes and furniture, borrowing money, begging and using up savings. The UN has even referred to the ‘spectre of famine’.”

On the eve of the UN General Assembly, CARE calls on UN Security Council members to do everything in their power to secure a lasting and inclusive peace for Yemen.

“Yemen is now at very real risk of entering a seventh year of war,” says Aaron Brent, CARE Yemen Country Director. “And the worst thing is that people – most tragically children – have become used to this situation. They are used to a constant state of conflict; it is their normal. But we must not allow this to be their normal.”

CARE condemns attacks in Yemen’s Hajjah and Al Jawf governorates in the last four days which reportedly killed 18 civilians in or close to their homes, including ten children and four women. This means more families cruelly torn apart and more loved ones lost forever in a country where 80 percent of the population relies on humanitarian aid.