The World Food Programme (WFP) needs a total of $200 million a month to fund its programs in Yemen, senior spokesperson, Elisabeth Byrs, announced yesterday.

“The organisation is concerned about over 20 million Yemenis who are food insecure, of which nearly 10 million are acutely food insecure,” Byres said in a virtual press conference.

“Over two million children in Yemen are already acutely malnourished, and it’s a figure that WFP fears will increase,” Byrs added, warning that the novel coronavirus would “push many more children in Yemen into acute malnutrition.”

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson, Jens Laerke, added that the failure to provide the required funding would lead to “a reduction in the nutritional supplements of 1.7 million child and pregnant women, which could result in deaths from preventable causes.”

On Friday, the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, Liz Grande, warned that 30 out of 41 of the UN’s humanitarian programmes would “shut down due to lack of funding”.