United Nations headquarters

A senior UN official said that the war-torn Yemen, already reeling from malnutrition and dwindling health care, is plummeting into further distress amid a deadly cholera outbreak and looming famine.

“Historically, Yemen has been one of the poorest Arab nations, if not the poorest, with (poverty) and corruption, poor governance and poor infrastructure.

“The war has simply made it much worse,” said Auke Lootsma, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Country Director, while briefing journalists in New York via teleconference from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

He compared the situation in the country to a bus “racing towards the edge of a cliff.’’

Instead of hitting the brakes and turning around, “the one controlling the direction of the bus keeps going and pushes the accelerator, all but certain to crash,” Lootsma warned.

He stressed that the Yemeni people were enduring incredible hardship, with 70 per cent of the population, some 20 million people, in need of humanitarian assistance.

Additionally, some 400,000 cases of cholera recorded in the past few months have resulted in 1,900 deaths.

He said due to the scope of the crisis combined with a lack of funding and access, humanitarians “are asked to cover gaps that are well beyond” their mandates and capacities.

According to the UN official, the country is on the brink of famine, with 60 per cent of the population not knowing where its next meal is coming from.

“The current food security crisis is a man-made disaster not only resulting from decades of poverty and under-investment, but also as a war tactic through economic strangulation,” he noted.

Pointing out that Yemen imported 90 per cent of its food even before the crisis.

This painted a picture of the difficulty in bringing food into the country now, as “it is actually financially out of reach for many of the poor families at this point in time.”

“The collapse of the health, water and sanitation sector due to a lack of salaries and damaged infrastructure” exacerbated the situation, the UNDP Country Director introduced.

Almost half of the health facilities are no longer functioning because they are partly or completely damaged.

What makes the situation worse is that “doctors and nurses are not coming to work because they have not been paid and looking for income elsewhere.”

With almost 1.2 million civil servants having not been paid since September 2016, many businesses have collapsed.

The conflict continues unabated as remaining infrastructure continues to be shattered, garbage is piling up and water treatment facilities are marginally functioning and creating ideal conditions for diseases.

Others are civilian casualties continue to mount, rendering Yemen as the world’s largest cholera crisis, according to Lootsma.

With its population set to double by 2050, pressing development challenges, including changing climate, negative production and malnutrition, will have a great impact on Yemen’s future.

Lootsma called on the international community to redouble their efforts, warning that time is running out to find the brakes to stop the bus before it goes off the cliff.

(Xinhua/NAN)