The UN Wednesday urged the Saudi-led coalition to end a blockade which has halted the flow of humanitarian supplies into Yemen, further threatening some seven million people facing famine-like conditions.
“If these channels, these lifelines, are not kept open it is catastrophic for people who are already in what we have already called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” a spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian office OCHA, Jens laerke, told reporters in Geneva.
Relief supplies into Yemen have been blocked since the coalition sealed off the country’s borders following a missile attack last weekend by Yemen’s Huthi rebels that was intercepted near Riyadh airport.
“Fuel food and medicine imports must continue to enter the country,” laerke said. “This is an access problem of colossal dimensions”.