Red Cross doubles budget in Yemen over food, health crises

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is increasing the budget for its activities in Yemen to over 90 million U.S. dollars in response to aggravating humanitarian, food security and healthcare crises, the ICRC official spokesperson in Yemen told Xinhua on Thursday.

"The budget increase seeks to focus on the healthcare side in the first place and also to boost response to the needs of the ongoing food crisis," Adnan Hizam, ICRC spokesman in Yemen, told Xinhua in Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Hizam said that the recent doubling of the budget this year from 48 to 90.7 million dollars will help the ICRC address the restrictions imposed by warring parties in Yemen on the entry of food, commodities and medicines, especially surgical materials.

The United Nations says that more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and nearly 42,000 others injured since the war, between coalition-backed forces loyal to Yemeni exiled President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi and those allied with the Yemeni Houthi rebel movement, escalated in March 2015.

Meanwhile, ground fighting and the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on rebel-held areas have displaced more than three million people so far, whereas seven million Yemenis do not know how to secure their next meal.

The ICRC funding still falls short, as the UN co-hosted in late April with the governments of Switzerland and Sweden a major international conference in Geneva to appeal for 2.1 billion dollars to avert famine in Yemen this year.

However, the donor countries pledged only 1.1 billion dollars for humanitarian aid in Yemen, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who warned that a Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes of preventable causes such as conflict, hunger and disease.

The ICRC workers in Yemen also face criticism campaigns and accusations from rival parties and are denied access to detainees related to the conflict.

"We will also protect civilians, support service institutions, check on detainees and their detention conditions and try to reconnect them with their families," the ICRC spokesperson in Yemen told Xinhua.

Hizam noted that fund shortage and security concerns are on top of challenges they face amid the conflict. "What people need here is much more than we can provide or have at the moment."

Among the massive challenges facing relief organizations in Yemen is the lack of access to most affected areas because of unabated battles and security issues.

In 2015, gunmen killed two ICRC workers on an aid mission in northern Yemen and others kidnapped an ICRC employee who was released a year later.

The war-torn country has suffered the world's largest crisis since 1945 and only 45 percent of Yemeni hospitals are functioning for the time being while coping with numerous obstacles.

The World Health Organization says that Yemen's healthcare system is on the verge of collapse amid acute shortages of medications, staff and other requirements, including power and fuel.

The blockade imposed by the Saudi-led anti-Houthi military campaign is believed to have deepened all humanitarian crises in Yemen, according to relief organizations. Endit