The World Food Program says Saudi Arabia’s continued blockade threatens the lives of millions in Yemen as aid deliveries cannot get to the needy.
Stephen Anderson, the head of the World Food Program, on Monday described as “heartbreaking” the fact that millions in Yemen depend on sustained access to humanitarian assistance.
Of a population of 26 million, some 17 million Yemenis do not know where their next meal is coming from and seven million are totally dependent on food aid.
On November 6, Saudi Arabia announced that it was shutting down Yemen’s air, sea, and land borders, after Yemeni fighters targeted an international airport near the Saudi capital with a cruise missile.
The United Nations made a plea for the Saudi war machine to remove its blockade, warning that without aid shipments “untold thousands of innocent victims, among them many children, will die” and that its partial lifting was not enough.
Anderson said from Sana’a that humanitarian flights to the northern Houthi-held part of Yemen have been grounded amid the siege.