UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), which is this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, on Wednesday warned the Security Council of a looming famine in war-torn Yemen as the country faces a countdown to a catastrophe.
"We are on a countdown right now to a catastrophe in Yemen. The people have been ravaged by years of conflict-fueled hunger and malnutrition. Now, there's a toxic combination taking place of surging violence, a deepening of the economic and currency collapse, and COVID-19 is ratcheting up the misery to a whole new level," WFP Executive Director David Beasley told the council's meeting on the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
The WFP chief noted that "we have got to get the world to open its eyes, to realize what we're truly seeing in the unfolding humanitarian disaster -- before it's too late," he said. "If we choose to look away, there's no doubt in my mind Yemen will be plunged into a devastating famine within a few short months."
Beasley said that the impact on food security has been catastrophic. "Pre-COVID-19, analysis found the number of people facing severe food insecurity was expected to exceed about 17 million people out 29-30 million people in 2020. Further analysis in the southern districts from a few months ago predicted that acute food insecurity would rise sharply -- from 25 percent to 40 percent of the population by the end of the year. That's about 3.2 million people of that 7.9 million surveyed."
Now the latest internal analysis tells us that famine is "truly a real and dangerous possibility," warned Beasley.
"The warning lights are flashing, and they are not flashing yellow. They are flashing red as red can be. We can't wait for a formal decision of famine to act. We have to stop waiting for the crisis to reach boiling point and then doing just enough to pull back it from the brink. It's time to stop with these band-aid solutions," said the WFP chief.
"We need the authorities to continue working with us and cooperate with us on efforts to restore donors' confidence," he added. "We also need a comprehensive, funded plan -- immediately -- to avert the famines glaring us in the face, stabilize the shattered economy, support longer-term development, and above all bring pressure to bear on the warring parties to silence the guns and make peace."
He called on all major donors "to step up with additional funds to avoid the looming famine in Yemen."
"Let me say this very clearly -- to avert famine for 2021, we will need 1.9 billion U.S. dollars. We can't nickel and dime this to death. We have got to move now, and people are going to die if we don't," said Beasley. Enditem
