August 23, 2012 by desertrose
Politics, Legislation and Economy News
Humanitarian Hypocrisy
Yemen’s Food Crisis: 10 Million Starving
Huffington Post
But Yemen’s food crisis does not only represent a threat to Yemenis, but much more importantly it represents a threat to various actors in the region and the wider world, ranging from neighbouring oil-rich, but moral-poor Saudi Arabia to the ever-more self-interested United States. This is because Yemenis across the country but particularly in the South have lost faith and trust in their government; beyond this they are no desperate for any support from anyone willing to help them. When the central government is unable to provide for its people, help reduce inflation and meet the most basic of security, extremist organisations such as Ansar al-Sharia are monopolising on the dire economic reality by providing the most basic of needs including food and in turn gain their trust. Although practicality dictates that these extremist operations are some-what limited to the more lawless areas of Yemen, the fact remains that central government seem unable, unwilling and incapable of forming a comprehensive response to the immediate food catastrophe.
The situation is compounded by the hundreds of thousands of Internally Displaced People in the southern part of Aden and Abyan as a result of the war against Al-Qaeda. Not to mention that at the same time, tens of thousands of refugees from the Horn of Africa are arriving on Yemen’s shores. The UN Envoy to Yemen, Jamal Ben Omar said that Yemen’s situation is complicated on many levels; as each day passes the complications continue to violently combine to the detriment of Yemen’s most hungry.
Putting the seriousness of the matter into context, 10 million people visited London this summer for the 2012 Olympics, the same amount are expected to starve this year in Yemen. Aside from the people’s desperation potentially leading to extremism, the humanitarian consequences of such a catastrophe would be unprecedented in the Arab region. Hence the imperative of response mounted by international community. For example, the UK have announced they will provide £28m to towards combating the crisis but this still this falls short of the £90m promised they promised. Additionally the EU has committed an additional €5m but this remains insufficient. Although significant funds totaling $4bn were pledged at the Friends of Yemen meeting in May, these pledges urgently need to materalise and turned into tangible humanitarian aid to keep people alive, as people cannot survive on promises. The UN says it needs $591 million in aid to meet current needs but has it has received less than half that amount. Whilst the next Friends of Yemen conference has been delayed till the end of the day, donors must respond now before the crisis further deepens.
Yemen’s diaspora community has also been active in helping to alleviate the crisis. So far the British-Yemeni community has successfully sent 40 tones of food; clothing and medicine to help people displaced from Abyan and has raised over £250,000 for Islamic Relief’s Yemen appeal. Further to this, the newly minted Yemen Relief and Development Forum, a UK-based umbrella charity, has also launched a campaign to raise money for food relief but its effectiveness is limited due to the proper lack of media coverage. Oxfam who, last month issued a joint appeal with Islamic Relief to raise $38m for the emergency relief of 5m people, has even admitted that Yemen’s plight is not emotionally appealing enough for people to give money. Joy Singhal, the manager of Oxfam’s humanitarian response in Yemen said that “It is not a crisis like the tsunami in Indonesia or the earthquake in Haiti. Yemen is one of two or three Arab states in the Middle East considered to be a middle-income area because it isn’t in the media”.
With the lack of media attention, the international community and aid agencies have no choice but to increase their efforts in combating Yemen’s food crisis, whilst ensuring that they do not fall into the trap of viewing Yemen within the security spectrum. Yemen’s new ‘unity’ government is currently weak; overall international support is lacking, whilst figures from the past such as Ali Abdullah Saleh continue to stand in the shadows, any policy which places terrorism and security concerns over the dire humanitarian situation would not only be a catastrophe for the starving Yemeni people, but a catastrophe for the security interests of the international community.
Related articles
- Why is Yemen’s food crisis off the world’s humanitarian radar? (guardian.co.uk)
- VIDEO: Charities warn over Yemen’s food crisis (bbc.co.uk)
- Political crisis over, Yemen now faces a lack of food – MiamiHerald.com (miamiherald.com)
- Yemeni people call for end of US, Saudi Arabia intervention… (altahrir.wordpress.com)
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