WFP cuts Yemen food rations by over 50% due to funding gaps, global inflation
13 million people to receive less than half of the daily nutritional requirement
The UN’s World Food Programme announced that it had to reduce rations for millions of Yemenis due to funding gaps, global inflation and food crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
WFP is in charge of feeding 13 million people per month out of 30 million Yemenis. The country, which imports most of its food supplies, has been suffering from severe economic consequences caused by an ongoing civil war.
"We are now being driven to scale back that support for 5 million of those people to less than 50 percent of the daily requirement, and for the other 8 million to around 25 percent of the daily requirement," WFP said in a Twitter post on Sunday.
"Resilience and livelihood activities, and school feeding and nutrition programs, will cease for 4 million people, leaving assistance available for only 1.8 million people," the statement added.
Earlier in June, the UN warned that three-quarters of refugees in east Africa supported by WFP saw their rations reduced by up to 50 percent. Since the beginning of the year rations have been reduced for 8 million people.
In May WFP said it would soon have to make further cuts after raising only a quarter of the $2 billion it needs for Yemen from international donors.
The war in Ukraine, which used to be one of the UN's main wheat suppliers, has significantly worsened the situation for poor countries by pushing up commodity prices, especially grain. Earlier in June, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the war could "tip tens of millions of people over the edge into food insecurity."