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 "The situation in Yemen is catastrophic and rapidly deteriorating,"
Jamie McGoldrick, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, said in
the appeal document.
"Nearly 3.3 million people - including 2.1 million children - are
acutely malnourished."
Yemen has been divided by nearly two years of civil war that pits
the Iran-allied Houthi group against a Sunni Arab coalition led by
Saudi Arabia. At least 10,000 people have been killed in the
fighting, which has unleashed a humanitarian crisis in the
desperately poor Arabian Peninsula country.
In all, nearly 19 million Yemenis - more than two-thirds of the
population - need assistance and protection, the U.N. said.
"Ongoing air strikes and fighting continue to inflict heavy
casualties, damage public and private infrastructure, and impede
delivery of humanitarian assistance," it said.
"The Yemeni economy is being wilfully destroyed," it added, saying
that ports, roads, bridges, factories and markets have been hit.
An estimated 63,000 Yemeni children died last year of preventable
causes often linked to malnutrition, the U.N. Children's Fund
(UNICEF) said last week.
“In Yemen, if bombs don’t kill you, a slow and painful death by
starvation is now an increasing threat,” Jan Egeland,
secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a
separate statement as the U.N. plan was launched.
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A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia entered Yemen's civil war
in March 2015 to try to reinstate President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi
after he was ousted from the capital Sanaa by the tribal Houthis,
who are fighting in an alliance with troops loyal to former
President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The United States has sent the Navy destroyer USS Cole to patrol off
Yemen's coast to protect waterways from Houthi militia aligned with
Iran, U.S. officials last week, amid rising tension between
Washington and Tehran.
Oxfam accused Britain and other powers backing the Saudi-led
coalition of "political complicity" in the Yemen conflict.
"The UK Government's calculated complicity risks accelerating Yemen
toward a famine, putting millions of lives at risk and making a
mockery of their global obligations to those in peril," Mark
Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said in a statement.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Miles and Tom
Heneghan)
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