Geography of hunger in Yemen: Houthi-controlled areas on brink of crisis

Mohamed Shaat

International concerns have been voiced regarding a famine that threats to hit millions in Yemen. Recently, The United Nations has sounded a distress alarm saying the situation in Yemen is critical with some 14 million people, or half the total population of the country, on the verge of famine.

“There is a clear and present danger of an imminent and great big famine engulfing Yemen,” Mark Lowcock, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a briefing to the Security Council on Tuesday.

Lowcock said that the situation in Yemen is “much graver” than when he warned of famine in Yemen at the beginning of 2017 and again last November.  That is because “of the sheer number of people at risk,” he said.

The conflict in Yemen was sparked by the Shia-led Houthi rebels taking control of Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014.

International organizations have often described the situation in Yemen as the worst in the world; as the Houthi militias use starvation as a weapon against civilians to subdue them.

The Houthis have also been taking control over Saada, destroying most of the bridges and infrastructure, in order to obstruct any humanitarian aids from reaching civilians.

Prices in the Houthi-controlled areas have recorded a 300% surge amid payroll cuts in the public sector after the militias robbed the central bank. Moreover, over 70% of private sector businesses closed due to the ongoing turmoil and taxes that the militias imposed over traders, which also led to the displacement of many families.

It is also pertinent to mention that a UN official has accused Houthis of obstructing humanitarian aids from reaching around 200 thousand citizens in dire need of food, water and medicine in Taiz.

The Houthi militias are trying to pressure forces allied with President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Saudi-led Alliance through besieging civilians into forcing the international community into halting the alliance’s activities.

Yemeni political analyst Abdulmalik al-Yousifi said that Yemen has been already hit with famine and that the UN report about the Yemeni scene is “catastrophic,” especially in light of the mixed figures that are being announced by the organization, claiming that the organization is receiving more money by increasing these numbers in its reports.

He added that the Houthi militias are deliberately starving the Yemeni people in a bid to bring them to their knees, regardless of their sufferings, as they seek to besiege them.

Al-Yousifi also pointed out that the Houthis deal with Yemenis with acute racism, due to the aggressive history between the Arabs and Persians.