Yemen’s health minister and WFP discuss wider nutrition programmes in Aden
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s health minister and a senior World Food Programme official discussed expanding nutrition programmes for people at risk of malnutrition, the state news agency said.
Qasem Buhaybeh, minister of public health and population, met the agency’s deputy country director for operations in Yemen. Saba reported the meeting on Sunday.
Saba gave the WFP official’s name as Samantha Sharaj. Yemen Herald could not verify that spelling against WFP’s own records.
The agency said the talks covered ways to increase nutritional interventions and to expand the response to current health and food needs.
It said the two focused on the most vulnerable areas and on groups at risk of malnutrition.
Both sides stressed expanding preventive and therapeutic programmes, according to Saba.
They also stressed closer coordination between health authorities and international organisations so that services reach the groups they are intended for, the agency said.
Saba gave no figures, no funding amounts and no programme dates.
The account rests on Saba’s report. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation that the meeting took place.
The meeting was held in Aden, which Saba described as the temporary capital.
Aden is the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised government. The Houthis have held Sanaa since 2014.
WFP warned this month that hunger was rising sharply in Yemen as fighting spread.
The agency said about 800,000 people nationwide were cut off from life-saving assistance. It published that figure on 14 October.
It said it could not reach more than 600,000 people in Taiz who depend on aid, among them over 200,000 women and children.
WFP said it had provided emergency assistance to more than 115,000 newly displaced people since the escalation began.
More than 18 million people in Yemen face acute food insecurity, according to the agency.
It put the number of acutely malnourished children under five at about 2.2 million, including 500,000 with severe acute malnutrition.
Monitoring in areas WFP can still reach found nearly 75 per cent of households unable to meet basic food needs, the agency said.
It described that as the highest reading recorded this year.
Ten of Taiz governorate’s 16 districts are classified at emergency levels of food insecurity, according to WFP.
The agency said wheat flour stocks were close to depleted and that local markets were running out of food.
WFP said access had been lost on Yemen’s west coast.
Lahj was among the largest displacement hotspots during the escalation, according to the agency.
Taiz is Yemen’s third-largest city and the capital of the governorate of the same name.
A UN spokesperson described the humanitarian situation in Taiz as devastating on 13 October.
El-Khidir Daloum, the WFP country director in Yemen, warned of a possible humanitarian catastrophe if aid cannot move safely.
WFP said it needed 268 million dollars to sustain its operations through 2027.
That sum covers emergency food aid, nutrition, school meals, resilience work and logistics, the agency said.
It said it planned to expand assistance to 1.5 million people once access is restored.
Thirty-seven WFP staff are among 72 UN personnel held by the Houthi authorities, according to the agency.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for their immediate and unconditional release.
The Houthis have not accepted the UN’s characterisation of the detentions.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said almost 260,000 people had been displaced inside Yemen since August.
About half of them had taken refuge in Taiz, the office said. Al Jazeera reported those figures on 22 October.
Al-Monitor reported in October that the Houthis had tightened their siege of Taiz. The Houthis dispute government accounts of conditions in the governorate.
Al Jazeera reported intense clashes in the Jabal Han highlands of western Taiz, and heavy fighting in the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts.
Rashad al-Alimi, who chairs the Presidential Leadership Council, condemned Houthi strikes on the Aden and al-Rayyan airports last week.
Yemen’s transport ministry condemned the firing of two ballistic missiles at Aden airport this month, Saba reported.
Aid agencies had reached more than 174,000 displaced people since August, according to OCHA. The office said shelter was the most pressing need for newly displaced families.
The UN Human Rights Office verified 251 civilian casualties over the same period, according to OCHA. It recorded 57 people killed and 194 injured.
Half of those killed were children, the office said.
Government forces launched a counteroffensive named Dawn of Yemen earlier this month, with Saudi-led coalition support.
A truce brokered by the United Nations in 2022 collapsed in July, when the Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi ports.
The United Nations humanitarian needs and response plan for Yemen, published in March, recorded more than 22 million people in need of assistance.
The same plan counted 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure and put the number of internally displaced people at 5.2 million.
It listed 516,157 children under five as severely malnourished and sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of those in need.
Yemen’s Ministry of Education says more than 2.5 million children are out of school because of the conflict.
Saba published its account of the health ministry meeting in the early hours of Sunday.
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