The UN said Tuesday it had finally reached vital food aid warehouses on Yemen's frontlines as it scrambled to raise $4.2 billion to provide desperately needed assistance in the war-torn country. The United Nations had since September been unable to reach the Red Sea Mills, which are grain warehouses in a government-controlled area estimated to hold enough to feed 3.7 million people for a month.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a donor conference in Geneva that he had "good news" from Yemen. "Finally it was possible for us to reach the Red Sea Mills."
A spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme told AFP that an evaluation mission reached the warehouses near the western port city of Hodeida. "We hope to be able to begin using this site again as soon as possible," Herve Verhoosel said. The mission follows an agreement struck on February 17, in which the sides in Yemen's conflicts agreed to redeploy their fighters outside the ports and away from areas crucial to the humanitarian relief effort.
The news that access had been possible came as the UN urged countries to provide unprecedented levels of support to help Yemenis caught up in the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The UN has said that $4.2 billion is needed to provide relief to more than 21 million people across Yemen, where 80 percent of the population is estimated to need assistance.
Guterres, who described the situation in Yemen as "an overwhelming humanitarian calamity" with some 10 million people on the verge of famine, hailed the generosity of donor states. By early afternoon he told reporters that $2.6 billion in pledges had been made.
"Today's pledging conference can be considered a success," he said, adding that donors had already pledged 30 percent more than during last year's conference. He pointed in particular to significant donations from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the two main countries in a coalition supporting the government side in Yemen's conflict.
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