UNICEF could slash support for Yemeni children without funding boost

A child dies from preventable causes every 10 minutes in war-torn Yemen, while over 540,000 children under the age of 5 are suffering life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, the UN highlighted on Friday.

A total of 11 million vulnerable children in the country are in urgent need of vital humanitarian assistance, the UN children's agency UNICEF says, warning it could soon be compelled to slash support for the kids without a funding boost.

In order to continue assistance this year, it said it required a whopping $484 million. But the UN, at a pledging conference last month in Switzerland, raised just $1.2 billion for all its agencies in the war-ravaged nation, well short of the $4.3 billion target.

The funding gap UNICEF continued to encounter over the last year and since the beginning of 2023 is threatening the necessary humanitarian response for millions of Yemeni children, the organization noted, underscoring the need for a funding boost to prevent scaling down support.

The years-long brutal conflict in Yemen began when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in a 2014 coup. The following year, an Arab coalition intervened to support the legitimate government and on March 26 of the same year launched their first assaults against Houthi positions. In recent months, fighting has largely been on hold, even though a ceasefire expired in October last year. 

According to the UN, the deadly fighting has triggered one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in the world. Two-thirds of Yemen's population, or over 21.7 million people, will need vital assistance this year, it says. Since the fighting escalated in 2015, more than 11,000 children in Yemen have potentially been killed or maimed.