WFP: Yemen ‘Not on Brink of Catastrophe, It Is Catastrophe’

YemenExtra

SH.A.

The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said that the country is at “a crucial moment”, while speaking at a UN Security Council meeting in New York City.

“I believe they are genuine and I expect them to continue in that way and to appear for those consultations and indeed so do the Yemeni people, who are desperate for a political solution to a war in which they are the main victims,” he added.

The Executive Director of the World Food Program (WFP) David Beasley called what he had seen this week in Yemen “the stuff of nightmares, of horror, of deprivation, of misery.”

“This country of 28, 29 million people has been suffering for years, but now, as some would say, it is on the brink of catastrophe. But it is not on the brink of catastrophe, it is a catastrophe,” he said.

The WFP plans to step up aid to up to 14 million people in Yemen – well over the eight million Yemenis who are close to famine and who receive food from WFP every month.