Throughout this year, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has increased assistance to all famine risk areas in Yemen, but as the economy keeps deteriorating, families are struggling to survive.
In Maghrabah, a remote district in Hajjah governorate in northern Yemen, families are resorting to eating the waxy leaves of a local tree to survive, boiling them to soften them into a bitter-tasting paste that is slightly more digestible. Maghrabah is one of 11 districts in Yemen where famine-like conditions were identified in late 2020.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m going to die without food. Sometimes we get a little food from the neighbours, but there are nights when we starve. All of us”
“Hunger does not show mercy to anyone. If it comes, it will kill you and your children. That is how I always imagine it: as a killer. Like a ghost.”
“I fear for my children. They are a part of me.”
WFP supports nearly 2500 household including Abdullatif’s family in Maghrabah district – where there are pockets of famine-like conditions – with emergency food assistance of flour, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar and salt.
Nearly 50,000 people in Yemen are living in famine-like conditions and 5 million people are in immediate danger. A child in Yemen dies every 10 minutes of preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, malnutrition, and respiratory tract infections.
Responding to these acute needs, WFP provides food assistance to nearly 13 million people, prioritising areas with the highest rates of food insecurity. In February, WFP resumed monthly distributions to 350,000 people in 11 districts facing famine-like conditions (IPC5), including Maghrabah, after the agency had been forced to halve rations due to funding shortfalls.
Abdullatif and his wife have five children. The family receives monthly food assistance from the U.N. World Food Programme – a food basket of staples including flour, beans, oil, sugar and salt. That is the only food they have – and when it runs out the family gathers leaves from the ‘halas’ tree to eat.
Abdullatif’s remote village has been further isolated by fuel shortages. Fuel imports into Yemen are down 73 percent year on year, pushing prices up and creating a thriving black market. Few in Adbullatif’s village can now afford public transport, making travellng for medical care – or even to market to buy food – almost impossible.
While Yemen’s crisis is complex, the effect of years of war on families like Abdullatif’s is clear.
“I don’t care about my future now. What I care about now is how I can feed my kids,” said Abdullatif.
Abdullatif’s two youngest children – one-year-old Jalal and Jalilah, 4 months – were showing signs of severe hunger in early September. Their hair began turning blonde, a sign of serious nutrient deficiency. They are just two of the 2.3 million Yemeni children under 5 at risk of malnutrition this year. But despite the warning signs, Abdullatif says he cannot afford to take them to a nutrition clinic – the cost of transport is too high for him.
The drivers of Yemen’s crisis – the conflict and economic decline – show no signs of abating. Neither does the U.N. World Food Programme’s commitment to supporting up to 13 million Yemeni people with emergency food assistance. To learn more about our work in Yemen and how conflict is driving hunger, click here.
This story originally appeared on WFP’s Stories on September 16, 2021 and was written by Annabel Symington.
