The United Nations has appealed for nearly 450 million dollar in humanitarian aid for strife torn Yemen to save it from becoming what one UN official called another Somalia.
This represents an increase of 95 percent compared to one year ago. At a conference in Dubai, the UN agencies and the relief groups working in Yemen said the country will need substantial humanitarian assistance over the next three to five years.
These include areas like food, health care, sanitation and clean water. Almost a year long strife in Yemen has brought the nation’s economy on the verge of collapse. People are facing acute shortages of fuel, food, water and electricity.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, estimated that at the end of November around 2.14 lakh refugees and almost half a million internally displaced persons were in Yemen. The IMF approved a 370 million dollar loan for Yemen in August 2010, but only one disbursement of around 50 million dollar has been received so far
