The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) confirmed, on Sunday, that many families in Yemen are forced to eat leaves due to hunger.
20 million people in Yemen are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations World Food Program.
WFP shared a Tweet saying that “The drivers of the #YemenCrisis – the conflict & economic decline – show no signs of abating. As a result, hunger is rising”, adding that “Families in some of the worst-hit areas of #Yemen, like Hajjah, are resorting to desperate measures like eating leaves to survive.”
On December 22, the WFP said it will reduce food assistance to war-torn Yemen as of January due to funds shortage, stressing that starting of January 2022, the families would receive half the quantities they used to receive before.
For nearly seven years, Yemen has been witnessing an ongoing war between the pro-government forces backed by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian-backed Houthis, who have controlled several governorates in Yemen, including Sanaa, since September 2014.
Last October, the World Health Organisation announced that three-quarters of Yemen’s children suffer from “malnutrition”.
The ongoing war in Yemen has cost the country $126 billion, and resulted in one of the worst humanitarian and economic crises in the world, with most of the 30 million population living in aid, according to the United Nations.
