A Quarter of Yemenis Do Not Have Food

A United Nations Survey has found that about five million people in Yemen are not in a position to either buy or produce food for their personal consumption, resulting in food shortages, that keep mothers' and children's stomachs empty.

The number of Yemenis going to bed on an empty stomach has doubled since surveys carried out in 2009. The World Food Program, trying to help the distressed Yemenis, said it had allotted food supplies for 3.6 million Yemeni nationals who do not have the means to buy food and are suffering due to armed conflicts that have hit the south and the north of the country.

The UN has the task of assisting 1.8 million Yemenis most of them women and children and the 670,000 internally displaced population in the war-torn country. Al Mahweet, a province in Yemen, has experienced serious problems due to food shortage with the worst hit being children whose normal growth has been hit. The report points out that 63.5 per cent of children in the province are experiencing shunted growth.

The survey, which was conducted during November and December last year, interviewed almost 8,000 households in 19 out of 21 governorates, and examined the nutritional and food consumption status of more than 11,000 children and about 10,000 mothers between the ages of 15 and 49, reported the UN News Center.