UN to double food aid to Yemen, plans to reach 14mn people

The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) has said it will nearly double food aid to Yemen to reach 14 million people a month – almost half the country’s population. Yemen is in the grip of the world’s worst hunger crisis as government troops backed by a Saudi-led coalition battle Houthi rebels. On Wednesday, 35 Yemeni and international NGOs called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the impoverished country, and said 14 million people were “on the brink of famine,” AFP reported. The WFP is providing food assistance to about seven to eight million people every day, “but the situation has now got so dire that WFP is preparing to scale up,” spokesman Herve Verhoosel said in Geneva on Thursday.