Date: Oct 18, 2018 Source: The Daily Star U.N.: 12M on verge of starvation in Yemen SANAA/GENEVA/PARIS: Some 12 million Yemenis could soon be on the brink of famine if the security and economic situation in the war-ravaged country does not improve, the U.N. warned Tuesday. “Yemen is currently facing the world’s worst hunger crisis, with almost 18 million people throughout the country not knowing where their next meal is coming from,” World Food Program spokesman Herve Verhoosel told reporters in Geneva. Over eight million people are already considered to be on the brink of famine in Yemen, he said, adding that the situation was being exacerbated by skyrocketing food prices, which have soared by a third in the past year alone. “If the situation persists, we could see an additional 3.5 million severely food insecure Yemenis, or nearly 12 million in total, who urgently require regular food assistance to prevent them from slipping into famine-like conditions,” he warned. WFP is in the process of scaling up its activities to provide emergency food assistance to some eight million of Yemen’s hungriest people each month, Verhoosel said. But he lamented that due to the dire security situation in the port city of Hudaida, the U.N. agency still did not have access to some 51,000 tons of wheat stocks at its Red Sea Mills facility there, which would be enough to feed 3.7 million people for a month. Further exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation, a tropical storm ravaged large areas of the country’s eastern Al-Mahra province, with three days of heavy rainfall and flooding injuring dozens, destroying property and killing livestock, Yemeni officials and the United Nations said. They said that around 70 percent of the province has been affected by the storm, cyclone Luban that was downgraded to a tropical storm. Two aircraft, one Yemeni and the other from the United Arab Emirates, are ferrying to safety residents stranded in the provincial capital, Gheita. Amin Hassan, a member of the provincial rescue committee, said hundreds of homes have either been destroyed or damaged with thousands heading to the mountains to escape the flooding. The U.N. said 33 people have been injured in al-Mahra and that a total of 2,000 families have been affected by the storm. It said coastal areas of the province were the hardest hit. Late Monday, Yemeni President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi fired the prime minister, accusing him of “negligence” in running the country. A decree from Hadi’s office said Ahmed bin Dagher was guilty of poor economic performance and failure to avert a collapse of the currency. The statement named Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed as the new prime minister. He was previously Minister of Public Works and Roads. Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron announced the release of a French citizen held in hostage in Yemen for more than four months and congratulated all those who contributed to Alain Goma’s release. French media reported that the 54-year-old Goma was on a sailing trip when damage on the ship forced him to dock in Hudaida in June, where he was held by rebels. Yemeni security officials said the Houthis released Goma from a prison in the capital, Sanaa, which is under rebel control. They said the release came after “intensive” talks between France’s envoy to Yemen and Houthi leaders in Sanaa. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief reporters.