Urgent action needed to ‘pull Yemen back from the brink of catastrophe’

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Noor, a 16-month-old toddler, is from the Lahj governorate in the southwest corner of Yemen. A UN-partner volunteer diagnosed her with severe malnutrition – and her story became headline news when the UN relief chief recounted it to the Security Council during an impassioned briefing last week.

Tom Fletcher said that with “time and treatment” Noor was able to recover fully.

But what happens to a child such as Noor when treatments are limited and time runs out?

A group of 116 aid organizations, including 10 UN agencies, called on Tuesday for “urgent, collective action” to prevent Yemen from descending into a humanitarian catastrophe.

They warned that without such action, specifically increased funding, their ability to provide life-saving assistance will be severely curtailed.

“Without immediate action, the vital gains achieved through years of dedicated assistance could be lost,” they said.

Non-stop crises

For more than a decade, Yemen has endured a series of crises – armed conflicts, climate disasters and economic decay. As a result, close to 20 million depend on humanitarian aid to survive and five million are internally displaced.

Half of all Yemeni children – some 2.3 million – are malnourished. Over 600,000 are severely malnourished, like Noor. Malnutrition also impacts over 1.4 million pregnant women, creating an intergenerational cycle.

The healthcare system is also in disrepair, with Yemen accounting for more than one-third of cholera cases worldwide and 18 per cent of related deaths. 20 per cent of children under the age of one are fully unvaccinated.

Providing humanitarian aid in Yemen has also come with extreme difficulties for aid workers, with some being arbitrarily detained, including UN staffers.

Strikes against the Hodeida port and Sana’a Airport have also damaged vital humanitarian pathways for food and medicine.

Time and treatment running out

The aid community’s call for urgent action comes amidst extensive funding shortages. The Yemen Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is less than 10 per cent funded.

“We urgently appeal to donors to scale up flexible, timely, and predictable funding for the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan,” the aid organizations said.

Already, the UN and aid partners are working to minimize operational costs while maximizing aid provision and there is no doubt suffering will increase due to the reduction in aid.

In the first quarter of 2025, over five million people in Yemen received emergency food assistance, 1.2 million received clean water and sanitation services and 154,000 children were able to resume their education.

But without immediate funding, Emergency Relief Coordinator Fletcher estimates that there will be gaps in this aid as early as June or July.

Nearly 400 health facilities will be forced to stop operating, including 64 hospitals, which will impact over 7 million individuals. Funding for more than 700 midwives is also quickly drying up.

Call to the international community

While the humanitarian crisis in Yemen has been overshadowed by other vast humanitarian crises in Gaza and Sudan among other places, the 116 aid organizations emphasized that “donor support saves lives.”

The 7th Humanitarian Senior Officials Meeting will be held Wednesday and should be a moment to work to avoid catastrophe in Yemen, the aid organizations urged.

“Now more than ever, swift and resolute support is crucial to prevent Yemen from sliding deeper into crisis and move towards a lasting peace,” they said.

Time and treatment are running out for children like Noor.