![A Yemeni nurse weighs a child at a medical centre on the outskirts of Sanaa, on January 6th. [Mohammed Huwais/AFP]](/cnmi_am/images/2018/01/22/11185-Yemen-Sanaa-child-700_496.webp)
The UN launched on Sunday (January 21st) the 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan, calling for nearly $3 billion to reach over 13 million people with life saving assistance.
This is the largest consolidated humanitarian appeal for Yemen ever launched, the UN said in a press release Sunday.
The $2.96 billion will be used to respond to an ever-broadening crisis in Yemen, where war, looming famine and cholera have killed thousands and put millions of lives at risk.
The appeal, made on behalf of UN agencies and humanitarian partners, came as 11.3 million people "urgently require assistance to survive", the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.
"A generation of children is growing up in suffering and deprivation," OCHA said.
"Nearly two million children are out of school, 1.8 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished, including 400,000 who suffer from severe acute malnutrition and are 10 times more likely to die if they do not receive medical treatment."
Three quarters of Yemen's population, or more than 22 million people, need humanitarian assistance, the statement said.
$1.5 billion in new aid from Arab coalition
A day after the UN appeal for aid, the Arab coalition announced $1.5 billion in new humanitarian aid for Yemen.
The coalition also said it would "increase the capacities of Yemeni ports to receive humanitarian" imports, as it faces mounting criticism for imposing a crippling blockade on the country.
The latest aid package follows last week's $2 billion Saudi cash injection to Yemen's central bank.
"The coalition will co-ordinate... $1.5 billion in new humanitarian aid funding for distribution across UN agencies and international relief organisations," the coalition announced in a statement.
The new aid programme seeks to open land, sea and air lanes to Yemen to boost monthly imports to 1.4 million metric tonnes from 1.1 million last year, the statement said.
The coalition pledged up to $40 million for the expansion of ports to accommodate additional humanitarian shipments, adding that it would set up an air corridor between Riyadh and the central Yemeni province of Marib to run multiple aid flights of C130 cargo planes.
The coalition said it would set up 17 additional "safe-passage corridors" to facilitate overland transport for humanitarian organisations operating in the remote interiors of Yemen.
"The coalition is placing its military resources at the disposal of these broad-ranging humanitarian operations," said coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki.
"We are backing a professionally planned and detailed humanitarian mission with military power and precision to guarantee that the humanitarian aid reaches the people who need it to lift their suffering."
'Support must be mobilised for Yemen'
The 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan was launched in view of the complexity of the political and military situation and the uncertainty of reaching a political solution via dialogue, said Deputy Minister of Planning and International Co-operation Mohammed al-Masouri.
The prolonged conflict "is negatively affecting the humanitarian situation", he told Al-Mashareq, stressing that an urgent solution is required to stop the country's collapse.
"The 2017 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan managed to raise only about 60% of the planned funds," he said.
Al-Masouri urged the UN and the international community to mobilise more support to alleviate Yemenis' sufferings.
He also called on the UN to exercise more pressure on the warring factions to engage in dialogue that would lead to a political solution and put an end to the suffering of millions of people.
