UN struggling to raise funds for war-torn Yemen

GENEVA: The UN said on Tuesday it had received just 13 percent of the $1.6 billion needed for aid to Yemen, where three months of fighting has forced more than one million people to flee their homes.
“The operations are critically underfunded,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency told reporters in Geneva.
The UN launched its $1.6-billion appeal to help millions of people in war-ravaged Yemen last month, but has so far received just $209 million of that, he said.
Nearly a third of the funds received had come from the United States, which pitched in $63 million, while Japan had handed over $19 million and the European Commission had given $15 million.
Saudi Arabia, behind the devastating airstrikes pounding Yemen since late March, has pledged $274 million towards the UN appeal, but none of that cash has yet materialised. “As of this morning, no cash has been transferred yet,” Laerke said.
The Saudis have pledged almost as much in humanitarian aid outside the UN appeal system, but it remained unclear if any of that money had materialised.
Laerke insisted that the UN’s humanitarian operation in Yemen “does not stand and fall” with the money pledged by the Saudis.
The $1.6 billion requested is meant to cover aid, including food, water and shelter, to 11.7 million of the most vulnerable people in need.
That is meanwhile only just over half of the some 21 million people, or 80 percent of the population, estimated to need assistance.