UN Raises Alarm as Yemen’s Food Crisis Devours Lives

(MENAFN) Three United Nations bodies issued a stark warning on Sunday, highlighting that nearly 5 million individuals in Yemen’s southern regions are currently grappling with food insecurity, a situation poised to worsen drastically unless immediate help is provided.

In a collaborative announcement, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) emphasized that if prompt and continuous aid is not delivered, an additional 420,000 people could face severe food shortages between September and February 2026.

This would increase the count of those severely affected by hunger to 5.38 million—accounting for over half of the population in Yemen’s southern provinces.

The agencies pinpointed several underlying causes fueling this crisis: ongoing economic deterioration, a sharp drop in the value of Yemen’s currency, persistent conflict, and a rise in extreme weather incidents.

They urged for swift and expansive humanitarian efforts to halt the slide into deeper hunger, to protect vital service access, and to foster economic and livelihood opportunities for those impacted.

This alert coincides with one of the most dramatic plunges in Yemen’s currency value. Recently, the riyal declined to approximately 2,750 per U.S. dollar in Aden and other areas under government control.

Yemen has been embroiled in conflict since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi movement took control of multiple northern provinces, forcing the internationally recognized government to abandon the capital, Sanaa. The conflict intensified in 2015 after a Saudi-led coalition launched a campaign to reinstate the government.

Now approaching its tenth year, the war has driven what the United Nations calls the world’s most severe humanitarian emergency. Despite several attempts at negotiation, a durable peace settlement remains elusive.

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