UN gives $250m food aid to Yemen

Over 4 million people will benefit from the aid Sanaa - Ali Rabea The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has signed two agreements with Yemen’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation to provide food and nutritional assistance to the victims affected by the violence in 2011, in addition to helping Yemen to aid the Somali refugees. A Letter of Understanding was signed by Mohamed Saeed al-Saadi, Yemen's Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, and Lubna Alaman, WFP's director in Yemen, to deliver urgent food and specialised nutritional support valued at $242m, to help groups affected in Yemen. More than 4 million people are expected to benefit from the aid. The second agreement covers a smaller, $8m relief and recovery operation to provide food assistance to Somali refugees in Yemen who have fled conflict or difficulties in their home countries in the Horn of Africa. More than 20,000 of these refugees, mainly Somalis, are sheltered at the isolated Kharaz refugee camp outside Aden in Lahij Governorate, where they rely on WFP's rations for survival. "Along with the violence that accompanied the uprising in Yemen against the regime of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in 2011, the humanitarian situation in the impoverished country remained moderate," UN Secretary-General's envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar said in his last report to the Security Council. He claimed that 78% of urgent humanitarian needs for 2013 are yet to be funded. Although donors reaffirmed their commitment to support Yemen during a meeting of the Friends of Yemen on March 7 in London, many of them, according to UN envoy had failed to follow up on their commitments.