WFP: Yemen’s ‘new chapter’ as Houthis accept aid safeguards

Top UN humanitarian David Beasley on Wednesday said Yemen’s Houthi rebels had finally agreed to roll out a long-delayed scheme to deliver food to Yemeni families without it falling into the hands of militants.

Mr Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, said a biometric system would help get food to 150,000 needy Yemenis in Houthi-run areas while ensuring that aid was not diverted elsewhere.

Should the scheme succeed, it could be expanded to include $500 million worth of cash transfers to struggling Yemenis in 2021 – a liquidity boost that could prop up a war-ravaged economy and a tumbling riyal, said Mr Beasley.

“On Sunday, we finally got the Ansar Allah authorities to come forward on the biometric registration of beneficiaries in Sanaa city,” Mr Beasley told a virtual UN Security Council meeting, using the official name for the Iran-backed movement.

“This is a pilot project of 150,000 beneficiaries and I like to think this is a major step forward, a new chapter of co-operation between all the parties in Yemen, and one which will allow us to scale up and roll out biometric registration in Ansar Allah areas as quickly as possible to give the donors the confidence to provide fresh funds.”

 Warning of a “countdown to a catastrophe in Yemen”, Mr Beasely said donors could now have faith in the biometric system and other improvements in Houthi-run areas and stump up $1.9 billion for aid work in Arabia’s poorest nation.

“If we choose to look away, there’s no doubt in my mind that Yemen will be plunged into a devastating famine within a few short months,” added the boss of WFP, which was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize last month.

The Houthi’s ouster of President Hadi’s government from Sanaa prompted military intervention in 2015 by an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia. Fighting has left two-thirds of Yemen’s population, some 24.1 million people, needing aid.

Separately, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday blasted the Houthis for oppressing the shrinking Jewish community of Sanaa, the capital, and called for the release from prison of Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, a Yemeni Jew.

“Mr Marhabi has been wrongfully detained by the Houthi militia for four years,” said Mr Pompeo. “His health continues to deteriorate as he languishes in a Sanaa prison, where the threat of contracting Covid-19 is a real possibility.”