Starvation in Yemen: We Are Hoping To Just Survive

As war rages, millions of people are struggling to access basic necessities such as food, water and fuel.

Abdullah al-Osaimi worries every day about how to put food on the table for his wife and four children.


The family fled several months ago from their home in Yemen's neighbourhood, east of the capital Sanaa, amid ongoing air strikes by the Saudi-led Arab coalition battling the country's Houthi rebels. They eventually resettled in a school housing internally displaced persons in the heart of Sanaa.

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"The problem of being homeless has been solved, but we are unable to find a solution for the most critical problem we face: accessing food and clean water," Osaimi, a 45-year-old unemployed salesperson, told Al Jazeera. When his family fled Noqm, they left behind their home, his small shop, and almost everything inside.

Osaimi has since eked out a living by selling bottles of water to pedestrians in Sanaa, quickly burning through his small savings of around 10,000 Yemeni rials ($50).

"I have become unable to provide food to my family - even the basic needs, such as plain bread and water," Osaimi said
Since March, an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been conducting air strikes in Yemen in an effort to curb the expansion of the country's Houthi rebels, who have been fighting government forces for control of the country. Thousands of people have died in the conflict, which has sparked a massive humanitarian crisis. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced, and many more are struggling to access the basic necessities, including food, water and fuel.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), around 14 million people in Yemen - more than half the country's population - have become food insecure, and of those, around seven million are classified as severely food insecure.

"It's a country that cannot take any further shock," Abeer Etefa, the WFP's spokesperson for the Middle East region, told Al Jazeera. "It's a very serious situation. We are doing our best so that we don't see a deterioration of the situation that's already extremely compromised."