UNITED NATIONS: More than 19.5 million people in Yemen will need assistance in 2025, a senior UN official said Wednesday, expressing concern over a worsening humanitarian crisis and for children suffering from malnutrition.
“People in Yemen continue to face a severe humanitarian and protection crisis,” said Joyce Msuya, interim chief of the United Nations’ humanitarian agency (OCHA).
And the crisis will only get worse, she added, citing the organization’s forthcoming consolidated humanitarian appeal for 2025.
Around 17 million people — nearly half the country’s population — cannot meet their basic food needs, Msuya said.
“At least 19.5 million people in Yemen need humanitarian assistance and protection this year — 1.3 million more than in 2024,” she said.
On top of this, an estimated 4.8 million people remain internally displaced, the majority of whom are women and children.
Nearly half of children under five years old suffer from moderate to severe stunting caused by malnutrition, while the country’s stressed health system is overburdened by “appalling levels” of cholera.
Hans Grundberg, the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, who just visited the capital Sanaa that is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militants, stressed the need for “immediate de-escalation and genuine engagement for peace.”
“The need to address Yemen’s crisis becomes ever more urgent as regional stability requires, in part, achieving peace in Yemen,” he said.
Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Houthis forced the internationally recognized government out of Sanaa. The militants have also seized population centers in the north.
A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December 2023 the warring parties committed to a peace process.
But tensions have surged during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as the Houthis struck Israeli targets and international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in a campaign the militants say is in solidarity with Palestinians.

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that Israel and Hamas have reached a ceasefire-and-hostage deal that will end fighting in Gaza, and added it was reached by working alongside the incoming Donald Trump administration.
“I can announce a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said at the White House. The deal was reached after 15 months of suffering, he said, and will be followed by a surge of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
“Fighting in Gaza will stop, and soon the hostages return home to their families,” Biden said.
The deal was reached after months of negotiations by the Biden administration, Biden noted as he thanked his national security adviser Jake Sullivan and other officials.
However, its terms will be mostly implemented by the incoming Trump administration, Biden said.
“In these past few days, we have been speaking as one team,” he said.
Asked by a reporter whether he or Trump deserved more credit for getting the deal done, Biden quipped, “Is that a joke?“
Trump, in a statement on social media, said the deal would not have happened if he had not been elected.
“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies,” he wrote.
Biden did not provide specifics outside the broad outlines of the deal that were already known, but indicated he thought it could set the stage for an independent Palestinian state.
“For the Palestinian people, a credible, credible pathway to a state of their own. And for the region, a future of normalization, integration of Israel and all its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia,” he said.
In a separate statement, the White House quoted Biden as saying: “Today, after many months of intensive diplomacy by the United States, along with Egypt and Qatar, Israel and Hamas have reached a ceasefire and hostage deal. This deal will halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much-needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families after more than 15 months in captivity.”