Food Security In Yemen Under Threat - Houthi Top Figure

(@rukhshanmir)

Food Security in Yemen Under Threat - Houthi Top Figure

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th November, 2018) Mahdi Mashat, the head of the Houthis' Supreme Political Council, held a meeting on Wednesday with David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) and said that food security in Yemen was under threat.

Earlier in the day, media reported that a major offensive by pro-government Yemeni troops, supported by the Saudi-led coalition, on the port city of Al Hudaydah was paused to evacuate civilians and aid workers.

"Food security in Yemen is in a dangerous condition as a result of the all-out blockade and halting of Yemeni exports. The battles are currently going on in Hudaydah city in the square of food stores and factories and this is a threat to food security," Mashat said at the meeting, as quoted by Yemen news Agency SABA.

Mashat also thanked the WFP for its efforts to alleviate the suffering of Yemeni people.

Beasley, on his part, said that he told the international community about the necessity to stop this war as children suffer from starvation and die every day in Yemen.

Yemen has been gripped by a civil war between President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi's government and the Shiite Houthi movement since 2015. The government is backed by the Saudi-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes that target the areas controlled by the Houthis since March 2015. The conflict has escalated this year in the region of Al Hudaydah, Yemen's largest Red Sea port, disrupting humanitarian supplies to the country and putting half of its population at risk of starvation.