GENEVA - The humanitarian situation in Yemen is worsening, yet donors are shunning the country, putting life-saving programmes at risk, the top United Nations aid official said on Thursday. John Holmes, U.N. emergency relief coordinator, also said in an interview that intensified fighting between government forces and al-Houthi rebels in the north was preventing aid agencies reaching trapped civilians. An estimated 250,000 people have fled their homes during the five-year conflict in the Arab world's poorest country, doubling the figure since the latest round of fighting erupted in August, according to UN figures. "The humanitarian situation is just getting worse without any doubt," Holmes told Reuters. "Needs are great and in danger of not being met because the international community, the donors, have not responded as we would have hoped." The United Nations appealed late last year for $177 million in humanitarian aid for Yemen during 2010. It is only 0.4 per cent funded, according to Holmes. "If we don't get some money, the aid pipeline will run out," he warned. The World Food Programme (WFP), a U.N. agency, has indicated that its "food pipeline is about to break and they will have to reduce the numbers they are helping" in Yemen, he said. The WFP is feeding Yemenis in camps for displaced persons, as well as children in schools and many of the 150,000 Somali refugees in Yemen. The country was thrown into the spotlight of the U.S. war against terror after a Yemen-based regional wing of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed Dec. 25 attack by a Nigerian suspect on a Detroit-bound passenger plane.
