Families living in war-torn Yemen are facing the world's worst humanitarian crisis in decades.
Years of conflict and fighting has left Yemen’s health care system fragile. Most Yemenis also lack stable access to a healthy, nutritious diet.
The continuous conflict has led to an increase of population displacements in the country. Millions of Yemenis need humanitarian assistance, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for humanitarian workers to access vulnerable communities.
Hundreds of thousands of people have reached extreme levels of famine and millions of people, including young children, need treatment for malnutrition.
Country facts
28.5m
Yemen has a population of 28.5 million people.
177
Yemen is 177th out of 189 countries in the Human Development Index.
24m
In Yemen, 24 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
The threat of Covid-19 spreading rapidly in the country, will put the most vulnerable communities most at risk. Parts of the country lack the basic resources to fight the virus and health care facilities and hospitals are ill equipped to face a pandemic of this scale.
In settlement camps, where many displaced families live, social distancing is almost impossible.
“We already had a crisis here well before coronavirus, so you can imagine what the situation is like now.”
Dr. Samar Kanzel. Action Against Hunger’s Deputy Programme Manager (Yemen)
Action Against Hunger’s work in Yemen
Despite tight restrictions in the country, we continue to support vulnerable children and their families. We’ve strengthened staff capacity in the ministry of public health and at health services to improve delivery of treatments for life-threatening hunger.
Our nutrition programmes continue to reach thousands of people throughout the country. For families suffering from food insecurity we supply cash transfers and prioritise monetary support.
To tackle the cholera epidemic, we’ve provided families with drinking water and are promoting good hygiene practices at a community level to prevent the spread of the disease. We’ve prioritised our water, sanitisation and hygiene (WASH), and food security and livelihoods (FSL) programmes in areas that present high rates of malnutrition and have limited access to health services.
Our reach
44,620
We reached almost 45,000 people through our programmes in Yemen in 2019.
57,201
We supported 57,201 people with multi-purpose cash transfers in 2019.
36,658
Our teams provided 36,658 people with safe drinking water in 2019.
Despite access difficulties in the north and south of the country, our teams continue to treat children for malnutrition in Yemen. We’ve also provided our teams on the ground with the specific information they need on protection against the virus.
Our staff are travelling to communities, delivering door-to-door awareness raising campaigns and spreading the message about how to stay safe through the pandemic, using visual guides when necessary. Volunteers are visiting rural homes and meeting families using outside spaces to maintain social distancing measures.
As well as awareness raising campaigns, we’ve also taken steps to reduce Covid-19 by installing handwashing stations, and improving the water supply in the country.
