World Food Programme warns of ‘devastating’ impact as conflict displaces thousands and cuts off food supplies.

Three out of four families in parts of Yemen are going hungry after a surge in fighting displaced tens of thousands of people and disrupted food supplies, the United Nations food agency says.

Some 74 percent of households in accessible government-held areas cannot meet their basic food needs, a record for this year, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.

An estimated 10 million people reside in government-held areas, according to WFP figures.

The rise in food insecurity indicates how quickly hunger is deepening in a country that imports about 90 percent of its food, as markets are disrupted and aid access shrinks.

In recent months, Yemen has faced a major escalation in fighting between Saudi-backed government forces and the Iran-aligned Houthi group that controls parts of the country.

The latest flare-up “threatens to be absolutely devastating” for food security, said WFP’s Assistant Executive Director for Programme Operations Matthew Hollingworth.

“We are looking at a hunger crisis that is going to grow as it persists,” he added, speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Rome on Friday.

The Houthis, who already control most of northern Yemen including the capital Sanaa, seized the country’s Red Sea coast last month from the internationally recognised government, based in the southern port city of Aden.

Displaced families are arriving outside Aden and around Taiz with no food or water after leaving everything behind, the WFP said.

Funding gap

The WFP said it is scaling up its response to reach up to 1.5 million people, but it needs $109 million to do so.

It has already diverted resources from food distributions planned for November, and warns that without new funding, vulnerable displaced people will face gaps in assistance within a month.

Across Yemen, 18.3 million people face severe food insecurity, including 2.2 million acutely malnourished children under five, the WFP reported.

The fighting is widely described as the most serious escalation between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis since a UN-brokered truce mostly halted cross-border attacks in 2022.

The conflict could reshape control of the country and further disrupt Red Sea shipping lanes.

Hollingworth warned that disruption around the Houthi-controlled Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Gulf could push up food and fuel prices globally.

But the effects are already snowballing. More than 3,700 people fleeing the fighting had reached Djibouti via the Bab el-Mandeb Strait by late September, the WFP said.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says more than 149,000 people have been displaced in Yemen – many of them more than once.