About the Crisis in Yemen
Yemen, located at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Nine years of war have driven more than 4.5 million people from their homes and 21.6 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance and protection services. Yemen remains among the top six largest internal displacements in the world.
Since violence broke out in late March 2015, Yemen - already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East – has seen its economy shrink by more than half. Less than half of Yemen’s health facilities are functioning and many that remain operational lack basic equipment and are unable to deliver minimum essential services. Nearly 90 percent of the population has no access to publicly supplied electricity. Key public service employees, including Yemeni health workers and two-thirds of all Yemeni teachers, have not received a regular salary in years.
Years of economic decline and institutional collapse are pushing the country to the brink of a large-scale famine, with 17.3 million people—over half of the population—suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity and 6 million people who are just one step away from famine. Internally displaced Yemenis are most at risk of food insecurity; studies show that displaced families are four times more at risk of falling into famine than the rest of the Yemeni population. Their situation has been further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, outbreaks of preventable diseases and climate-induced natural disasters.
Despite the conflict, Yemen hosts 137,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Somalia and Ethiopia, making it the world’s second largest host of Somali refugees.
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