Yemen, a nation caught in the delicate balance between a fragile peace and devastating conflict, is immersed in one of the world’s most catastrophic humanitarian crises.
Although the reverberations of conflict have subsided, an overwhelming wave of suffering, pain, and despair continues to resonate, echoing the distress of millions. These are not abstract statistics or geopolitical complexities but intimate stories of individuals, particularly children, bearing burdens immensely disproportionate to their tender years.
Almost ten years since the conflict began in 2014, the magnitude of Yemen crisis continues to be overwhelming:
34.4 million people – this is the total population in Yemen, as of late 2023.
18.2 million people in Yemen are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. This is 53% of the Yemeni population.
17.4 million Yemenis are without access to basic human necessities like clean water, sanitation, and hygiene services.
17.6 million people are grappling with food insecurity, 77% of these are women and children.
4.5 million people have been displaced from their homes to locations within Yemen due to the ongoing conflict.
9.8 million children in Yemen are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
$2.71 billion: The UN’s predicted funding requirement for Yemen in accordance with the Humanitarian Response Plan for 2024. As of April 2024, only 9,6% (US$260 million) of those required funds had been raised.
Each statistic unveils a narrative, a silent plea for peace, security, and dignity. They encapsulate the stories of children trapped amidst starvation, disease, and displacement, exacerbated by economic stagnation and infrastructural disintegration.
World Vision remains unyielding in our support for the Yemeni people. Our collaboration with partner agencies in Yemen and our ongoing concentrated efforts in water and hygiene, nutrition and health, and protection programs emphasize this commitment.
In November 2019, World Vision began working in Yemen through partner agencies on the ground to provide aid for children living in poverty and crisis in remote communities in Southern Yemen. The World Vision Yemen Response aims to alleviate suffering of local communities, whose lives have been severely affected by the largest humanitarian crisis of the modern world, including ongoing conflict, alarming levels of food insecurity and health threats.
Since the start of our activities in Yemen in 2019 until early 2024, World Vision has directly supported a total of 125,441 people, including 64,785 children in South Yemen with health, nutrition, WASH and protection activities.
Since spring 2021, World Vision has collaborated with Medair to implement vital health, nutrition, WASH, and protection services. Within this collaboration, our health, nutrition and WASH initiatives include, but are not limited to, supporting Health Facilities and Therapeutic Feeding Center, WASH-infrastructure rehabilitation in schools and communities and vast outreach activities in Lahj, Ad Dhale and Aden Governorates in Southern Yemen. Through these combined efforts, we have enhanced access and quality of the local population to much-needed services for over 52,709 people in 2023 alone. With our previous partner the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) we conducted community water system rehabilitations in 2019 and 2022, which ensured water access for 25,942 individuals, including 11,674 children.
In addition to those tangible activities, an additional 200,000 people were reached with public health messaging from 2020 until early 2022. Through a cooperation with the Response Innovation Lab high-quality Yemeni-contextualized public health videos were developed and rolled out via social media in a concerted public health campaign.
World Vision believes the children of Yemen need to be protected as the conflict continues around them. Aiming to support the best way we can, we continuously explore ways to extend our response to reach the most vulnerable children and their families through new partnerships and program opportunities.
The priorities for World Vision in Yemen are Health and Nutrition, Water Sanitation Hygiene and Child Protection Services. While we are also carefully exploring longer term Climate Impact (especially around Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration, FMNR) and Livelihood programming that can bring local capacities and self-sustainability to vulnerable communities.
