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Committee member warns Yemen's humanitarian crisis is deepening as funding falls
Summary
A Committee member told the council that Yemen's humanitarian crisis is worsening, with more than 18,000,000 people hungry and 450 health facilities closed over the past year; the speaker urged donors to sustain flexible funding and called for the release of 73 detained U.N. colleagues.
A Committee member told the council that Yemen's humanitarian crisis is deepening as the country's ability to respond has been sharply reduced, and urged sustained donor support to prevent further loss of life.
"Food insecurity is approaching catastrophic levels with more than 18,000,000 people across Yemen hungry," the Committee member said, adding that many are in an acute situation of hunger and that malnutrition continues to threaten millions of children as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women.
The speaker highlighted multiple simultaneous shocks—worsening food insecurity, the expected impact of El Niño on food production and livelihoods, and "an unprecedented fall in humanitarian funding"—and warned these are compounding the extreme fragility of the population. The Committee member said families are being forced into excruciating choices "whether to buy food or medicine, whether to keep children in school or send them to work."
Providing concrete figures, the Committee member said: "Over the past year alone, 450 health facilities, including 76 hospitals, have closed due to the lack of resources." He said the loss of facilities is undermining basic care and the ability to respond to emergencies.
The speaker also drew attention to access constraints, noting that the closure of Sana'a's international airport has made medical travel harder and forced some patients to travel long, dangerous distances to reach flights departing from Aden.
He made four explicit appeals: to parties and those with influence to "act with restraint and do not allow Yemen to be drawn further into regional instability"; to donors not to step back and instead provide "sustained flexible funding"; to the council to keep Yemen high on the international agenda; and to "advocate in the strongest possible terms for the immediate and unconditional release of all those arbitrarily detained, including our 73 UN colleagues."
The Committee member closed by praising Yemeni resilience and urging the international community to help the country recover and rebuild. There was no formal vote or action recorded in the transcript; the remarks were a request for humanitarian and political engagement going forward.
