A country where millions of people are already starving could run out of food in as little as two months if a key port gets shut down, desperate aid workers in Yemen say.
The United Nations says that three-quarters of war-torn Yemen’s 29 million people rely on humanitarian assistance, including eight million who are considered “severely food insecure.”
Much of that aid comes through the port city of Hodeidah, which has been increasingly gripped by fighting in recent weeks. That has caused food prices to rise even more.
In one northern village, children have been boiling tree leaves into paste to stave off starvation, even though it provides no nutrition and has been making them feel ill.
Oxfam Canada’s Melanie Gallant says that if the Hodeidah port becomes cut off, “essentially it would be plunging millions of Yemenis even further into hunger.”
Medical supplies would also be cut off in a country that has dealt with tens of thousands of cases of Cholera in the past year alone.
Gallant said Oxfam is calling on governments and citizens to make donations to help prevent the problem from getting worse.
“Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster at the moment,” she said. “There’s really no time to lose.”
With a report from CTV’s B.C. Bureau Chief Melanie Nagy
