Humanitarian Updates
As the talks in Kuwait faltered the dire humanitarian and economic situation in Yemen continued to worsen. UN agencies warned this week that a vast majority of Yemeni governorates, 19 out of 22, are facing severe food insecurity. According to a new joint assessment by the UN and its partners, the situation within affected areas is likely to deteriorate if the current conflict persists. The latest ‘Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’ (IPC) analysis reports that over half of the country’s population is living in “crisis” or “emergency” levels of food insecurity, with some governorates seeing as much as 70 per cent of the population struggling to feed themselves. At least 7 million people are living under ‘Emergency’ levels of food insecurity (Phase 4 on the five-tiered IPC scale), a 15 per cent increase since June 2015, and a further 7.1 million people are at ‘Crisis’ level (Phase 3).
Warnings about the country’s economy were also highlighted in MOPIC socio-economic update.
The report said that due to the blockage of oil and gas export, the outstanding balance and burden of the public debt has grown to “alarming levels”. The total public debt increased significantly in 2015, rising from $22.1 billion in 2014 to about $25.9 billion in 2015.