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.

The high level pledging conference on Yemen has come to a close, with funding pledges for the UN’s Humanitarian Response Plan disappointingly low. As countries pledge an estimated 1.35 billion USD in funding – just over half (56 percent) of the 2.41 billion requested in order to reach 19 million people with aid – it is water, sanitation and hygiene that is most urgently needed right now, at a time when Yemen has never had such low levels of funding this late in the year.