JamzNG Latest News, Gist, Entertainment in Nigeria
In its warning, the agency said that tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers were struggling to survive.
The report describes a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis for more than 65,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Yemen, as “rising insecurity, economic collapse, depleting resources and severe humanitarian access constraints leave tens of thousands of people with nowhere to go”.
Despite escalating conflict between Houthi opposition fighters and Government forces escalating last month and ending a four-year ceasefire, thousands of people continue to risk dangerous sea crossings from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, it said UNHCR spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh.
Access is highly restricted
Aid teams are particularly concerned about the situation in the Kharaz refugee camp in the southwestern region of Lahj, near the front line.
The camp hosts around 9,500 refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia in government-controlled territory. Although there have been no verified fatalities so far, “shooting around the camps has disrupted services and led to movement restrictions for those in the camps…who had previously fled the conflict”, Saltmarsh said.
UNHCR partners have distributed food within the camps in coordination with local authorities, and health assistance and water provision continues, despite significant difficulties. But most other services have stopped, schools have been suspended, legal and documentation services have stopped, and rising prices for fuel and basic food have made it increasingly difficult for refugees to meet their basic needs.
“If access is possible, we will provide that assistance, but it is a challenge,” Saltmarsh said. “We have heard a lot that some refugees are unable to reach the places where we have our supplies and aid… in many cases, it is too dangerous for us to reach them.”
According to UNHCR, more than 280,000 people in Yemen have been displaced by the fighting. The significant increase in the need for humanitarian assistance coincides with severe supply chain shocks in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, related to the US-Iran war, while the resources available to assist with both are increasingly limited. Currently, the agency’s application for Yemen is only 19 percent funded.
Relief supplies are on the way
In a positive development, the agency announced that it had secured pro bono transportation support for 11 containers of emergency relief goods from Dubai to Yemen, “despite changing security conditions and logistical constraints hampering such delivery efforts,” Saltmarsh said.
“The 11 containers will arrive tomorrow, carrying 3,000 aid packages for more than 20,000 people in Yemen,” he added, before warning that the agency’s operations in Sudan, Djibouti and Ethiopia were the countries most affected by trade and shipping disruptions in the Red Sea.
