Today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced more than $444 million in additional humanitarian aid to help the people of Yemen, of which $440 million is through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This brings the United States' total assistance to the humanitarian response in Yemen to over $5.4 billion since the conflict began in September 2014.
Years of conflict - along with an economic crisis, high levels of unemployment, and rising food and fuel prices - have left more than 21.6 million million - two-thirds of Yemen's population - in need of humanitarian assistance. The Russian Federation's brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, one of the world's major food exporters, has had a particularly adverse effect on Yemen, where imports account for 90 percent of the country's food. This funding will allow humanitarian partners to continue reaching millions of vulnerable Yemenis with emergency food assistance, treatment for malnutrition, protection, and safe drinking water and improved sanitation services.
The United States stands by the people of Yemen, and will continue to work with our partners to provide life-saving assistance to those in need. But we cannot do it alone. It is imperative that other donors and the international community step up now to fill the massive funding gaps so that humanitarian organizations can respond at scale, save lives, and prevent conditions in Yemen from worsening.
For the latest updates on USAID's humanitarian assistance in Yemen, visit: www.usaid.gov/humanitarian-assistance/yemen
