The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has warned that Yemen was the country most at risk of a humanitarian catastrophe in 2021. It also said that the nation has earned the grim recognition in terms of humanitarian aid from international community.

Continued conflict, widespread hunger and a collapsing international aid may dramatically worsen the current crisis in Yemen next year, the IRC said on Wednesday.

Tamuna Sabadze, the aid agency’s director for Yemen, said support was critical, now more “than ever”.

“Twenty-four million people are in need of some kind of humanitarian aid – be it food, protection, health services, or education.

The IRC’s watchlist for 2021, ranked from one to 10, comprised: Yemen; Afghanistan; Syria; the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Ethiopia; Burkina Faso; South Sudan; Nigeria; Venezuela and Mozambique.

Financial support for the country is drying up, with UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock warning in November Yemen had received less than half of the emergency funds it needed this year.

Lowcock told the UN Security Council the 2020 appeal for Yemen had received only about $1.5bn in donations to date, some 45 percent of the $3.4bn required. By this time last year it had received almost $3bn, he said.

According to the UN, 80 percent of Yemen’s 30 million people need some form of aid or protection.

About 13.5 million Yemenis currently face acute food insecurity, including 16,500 people living in famine-like conditions, UN data shows.

(Source: Aljazeera)