Source:<\/p>\n
UN chief Antonio Guterres welcomes financial aid as Yemen’s foreign minister urges talks to end three-year war.<\/p>\n
International donors have pledged more than $2bn in humanitarian aid to provide life-saving assistance and protection to the people of Yemen bearing the brunt of a\u00a0deadly conflict<\/a>\u00a0now its fourth year.<\/p>\n Forty countries and organisations committed to donate $2.01bn on Tuesday during a pledging event in the Swiss city of Geneva, which was cochaired by the UN, Sweden and Switzerland.<\/p>\n The\u00a0UN<\/a>\u00a0and its humanitarian partners had launched an appeal for $2.96bn to mobilise urgently needed resources for millions affected across the Arabian Peninsula country.<\/p>\n A similar conference last year raised $1.1bn in aid.<\/p>\n Antonio Guterres<\/a>,\u00a0UN secretary-general,\u00a0who was present at the one-day conference, praised the fundraising event, but said more needs to be done by all the parties involved.<\/p>\n “This pledging conference represents a remarkable success of international solidarity to the people of Yemen,” Guterres said.<\/p>\n “Humanitarian resources are very important, but they are not enough.<\/p>\n “We need unrestricted access everywhere inside Yemen and we need all the parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law, and to protect civilians.<\/p>\n “Above all, we need a serious political process to lead to a political solution.”<\/p>\n This year, the UN and its partners’ “Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan” (YHRP) requires $2.96bn for life-saving assistance to 13 million people and other support.<\/p>\n Isabella Lovin, Sweden’s deputy prime minister and cohost of the Geneva event, said despite the funding, “lack of humanitarian access remains a key obstacle to organisations working in Yemen.<\/p>\n “Humanitarian aid alone cannot be the response to the growing needs of the Yemeni people endangered by the armed conflict”.<\/p>\n Ueli Maurer,\u00a0Switzerland’s vice president, said: “A political solution must imperatively be found. Switzerland calls for a cessation of hostilities and invites all parties to join the negotiating table.”<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Yemen’s foreign minister, who was also present at the conference, called for a return to the negotiating table to end the devastating three-year civil war in the country.<\/p>\n “We need to find the ideal solution which is a return to the talks table, to put an end the war, to return to a sustainable system supported by the people of Yemen,” Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi said.<\/p>\n Since 2015,\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>\u00a0has been leading a military coalition in Yemen fighting\u00a0Houthi<\/a>rebels.<\/p>\n The ongoing conflict has led to massive food shortages and the “worst recorded\u00a0cholera outbreak<\/a>“, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).<\/p>\n The UN, which calls Yemen the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”, says 22.2 million people are in need of aid, while 8.4 million are on the verge of famine.<\/p>\n In November 2017, the Saudi-led coalition eased a three-week-long blockade on rebel-held parts of Yemen, following an international outcry.<\/p>\n However, rights groups say the spectre of mass\u00a0famine<\/a>\u00a0would continue to loom over Yemen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: UN chief Antonio Guterres welcomes financial aid as Yemen’s foreign minister urges talks to end three-year war. International donors have pledged more than $2bn in humanitarian aid to provide life-saving assistance and protection to the people of Yemen bearing the brunt of a\u00a0deadly conflict\u00a0now its fourth year. Forty countries and organisations committed to donate $2.01bn on Tuesday during a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1549,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/1549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}