U.N. conference raises 28% of emergency aid target for Yemen

Donors raised US$1.2 billion in pledges at a conference in Geneva to support and protect the most vulnerable people in war-torn Yemen.

The fundraising total Monday came to little more than a quarter of the US$4.3 billion goal for helping 17.3 million people, but U.N. estimates show 21.6 million people, or two-thirds of Yemen's population, will need emergency aid this year.

"The Yemen crisis has gone on far too long, punishing millions of innocent people who didn’t want it in the first place and who deserve so much better," said Martin Griffiths, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

The world's failure to provide more to meet the needs of so many people struggling to access basic necessities like food, water, and shelter is unacceptable, the Norwegian Refugee Council's country director for Yemen, Erin Hutschinson, said of the high-level fundraiser for Yemen.

"This is woefully inadequate and gives the signal that some humans are less valuable than others," said Hutchinson. “The international community today showed it has abandoned Yemen at this crucial crossroads, with a mere quarter of the amount needed to support the millions of Yemenis who require urgent assistance."

Thirty-one donors offered money for Yemen "despite multiple crises worldwide" that are putting an extra burden on governments and other donors that provide humanitarian funding, according to Ignazio Cassis, the Swiss foreign minister.

"It was a good start, but with 21 million Yemenis in need of assistance, clearly more funding will be needed throughout the year," noted Johan Forssell, Sweden's foreign trade minister.

A fragile hope

Switzerland, Sweden and the United Nations co-hosted the high-level fundraiser in the U.N.'s European headquarters that drew German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, whose nation pledged €120 million, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose nation pledged more than US$444 million.

More than eight years of regional proxy war began in 2014 when the Iran-backed rebel Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north.

A Western-backed alliance of Sunni Muslim Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia, tried to prop up the internationally recognized government of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was driven from Sanaa by the militia in 2015.

More than 150,000 people, including at least 14,500 civilians, have been killed by the fighting, which along with climate change and a web of other factors has led to a massive humanitarian crisis that is putting the nation on the brink of famine. Blinken urged the combatants to allow humanitarian aid to flow unimpeded.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said the world ended last year with "a measure of hope for the future of Yemen" due to a U.N.-brokered truce last year, though it failed to hold.

"After years of death, displacement, destruction, starvation, and suffering, the truce delivered real dividends for people," he said. "Civilian flights resumed from Sanaa; vital supplies arrived through the port of Hudaydah. But the truce lapsed though after only six months."