More than 19.5 mn Yemenis in need as crisis worsens: UN

More than 19.5 million people in Yemen will need assistance in 2025, a senior UN official said Wednesday, expressing concern over a worsening humanitarian crisis and for children suffering from malnutrition.

"People in Yemen continue to face a severe humanitarian and protection crisis," said Joyce Msuya, interim chief of the United Nations' humanitarian agency (OCHA).

And the crisis will only get worse, she added, citing the organization's forthcoming consolidated humanitarian appeal for 2025.

Around 17 million people -- nearly half the country's population -- cannot meet their basic food needs, Msuya said.

"At least 19.5 million people in Yemen need humanitarian assistance and protection this year -- 1.3 million more than in 2024," she said.

On top of this, an estimated 4.8 million people remain internally displaced, the majority of whom are women and children.

Nearly half of children under five years old suffer from moderate to severe stunting caused by malnutrition, while the country's stressed health system is overburdened by "appalling levels" of cholera.

Hans Grundberg, the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, who just visited the capital Sanaa that is controlled by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels, stressed the need for "immediate de-escalation and genuine engagement for peace."

"The need to address Yemen's crisis becomes ever more urgent as regional stability requires, in part, achieving peace in Yemen," he said.

Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Huthis forced the internationally recognized government out of Sanaa. The rebels have also seized population centers in the north.

In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition intervened to prop up the beleaguered government.

A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December 2023 the warring parties committed to a peace process.

But tensions have surged during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as the Huthis struck Israeli targets and international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in a campaign the rebels say is in solidarity with Palestinians.