{"id":9678,"date":"2026-02-07T12:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T03:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/?p=9678"},"modified":"2026-02-07T12:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T03:58:16","slug":"humanitarian-access-collapses-as-yemens-political-and-security-crisis-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/news\/humanitarian-access-collapses-as-yemens-political-and-security-crisis-deepens\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanitarian Access Collapses as Yemen\u2019s Political and Security Crisis Deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Oritro Karim<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNITED NATIONS (IPS)\u00a0<\/strong>– In recent weeks, Yemen\u2019s humanitarian crisis has sharply worsened, as escalating food insecurity and brutal clashes between armed actors have prompted United Nations (UN) officials to warn that the country is approaching a critical breaking point. Intensified violence has increasingly obstructed lifesaving humanitarian operations, while deepening economic and political instability continues to erode access to essential services. As a result, millions of Yemenis now face the growing risk of being left without the support they need to survive, with children being the hardest-hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late December and early January proved to be a particularly volatile period for Yemen, with political turmoil acting as a key driver of instability, particularly in the nation\u2019s south. Recently, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) launched major offensives across the south, seizing key provinces such as Hadramawt and al-Mahrah, prompting Saudi-backed government forces to launch a series of airstrikes to reclaim key infrastructure in cities such as Mukalla and Aden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While a military de-escalation was achieved in the following days, humanitarian experts warn that the overall security situation remains extremely fragile without a durable political and economic solution\u2014both of which continue to threaten national stability. According to UN experts<\/a>, years of political turmoil have severely weakened the economy, driving inflation, pushing food and fuel prices further out of reach, and leaving large numbers of public sector workers with unpaid salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 14, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg<\/a> briefed ambassadors on the urgent need to establish a credible, transparent, and inclusive political process. He explained that the \u201cdevelopments in southern Yemen highlight how quickly that fragile balance can be disrupted,\u201d and how critical it is \u201cto re-anchor the process in a credible political pathway\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsent a comprehensive approach that addresses Yemen\u2019s many challenges in an integrated manner, rather than in isolation, the risk of recurrent and destabilizing cycles will remain a persistent feature in the country\u2019s trajectory,\u201d said Grundberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grundberg also underscored the importance of protecting Yemen\u2019s economic institutions\u2014particularly the Central Bank\u2014from political and security conflicts, warning that even short-lived instability can trigger currency depreciation, expand fiscal deficits, and hinder urgently needed economic reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Yemeni officials, clashes between the STC, the Houthi movement, and the Saudi-backed government have driven large-scale displacement and disrupted access to essential services for thousands of civilians. On January 19, Julien Harneis, Assistant Secretary-General and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen<\/a>, told reporters that humanitarian conditions are expected to deteriorate further in 2026, with an estimated 21 million people projected to require humanitarian assistance\u2014an increase from the 19.5 million recorded last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes more than 18 million Yemenis\u2014roughly half the population\u2014who are projected to face acute food insecurity in February. Additionally, it is estimated that tens of thousands could fall into \u201ccatastrophic\u201d levels of hunger and face famine-like conditions without intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yemen\u2019s hunger crisis is projected to hit children the hardest, with roughly half of all children under five years old facing acute malnutrition. As a result of persistent funding gaps last year, only a quarter of the 8 million children targeted for nutritional support received lifesaving care. Furthermore, over 2,500 supplementary feeding programmes and outpatient therapeutic programmes were forced to close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe simple narrative is, children are dying and it\u2019s going to get worse. My fear is that we won\u2019t hear about it until the mortality and the morbidity significantly increases in this next year,\u201d said Harneis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, Yemeni officials underscored that recent hostilities have forced key civilian infrastructures\u2014including schools and hospitals\u2014to shut down or operate at limited capacity. Ramesh Rajasingham, Director of the Humanitarian Sector for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA<\/a>) noted that over 450 health facilities have closed in recent months, with thousands of others at risk of losing funding. Additionally, vaccination campaigns have been hindered, facing significant challenges in accessing children in the north, leaving them highly vulnerable to preventable diseases such as measles, diphtheria, cholera, and polio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajasingham also warned of tightening restrictions on aid as a result of violence. According to figures<\/a> from the UN, 73 UN staff have been arbitrarily detained by Houthi de facto authorities since 2021, restricting aid operations across 70 percent of humanitarian needs across Yemen. \u201cWe know that when humanitarian organizations can operate safely, effectively and in a principled manner, and when resources are available, humanitarian assistance works. It reduces hunger, it prevents disease, and it saves lives. But when access is obstructed and funding falls away, those gains are quickly reversed,\u201d said Rajasingham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 29, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it is shutting down operations in northern Yemen following severe aid restrictions, harassment, and arbitrary detainment of staff from Houthi personnel. UN officials informed reporters that approximately 365 of the remaining WFP staff members in northern Yemen will lose their jobs by the end of March, as a result of insecurity and funding challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, Yemen\u2019s UN Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan<\/a> was only funded at 25 percent, forcing humanitarian actors to scale back critical services, deprioritize certain populations or sectors, and halt lifesaving operations, leaving millions without aid and exposed to heightened risks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe unavoidable reality is that the United Nations must continue to reevaluate and reorganize our humanitarian operations on the ground in DFA-held areas of Yemen \u2013 home to around 70 per cent of humanitarian needs countrywide,\u201d said Rajasingham, also urging the Security Council to exert pressure on the international community to bring about the release of the 73 UN staff and scale up funding as needs continue to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

INPS Japan\/IPS UN Bureau Report<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Oritro Karim UNITED NATIONS (IPS)\u00a0– In recent weeks, Yemen\u2019s humanitarian crisis has sharply worsened, as escalating food insecurity and brutal clashes between armed actors have prompted United Nations (UN) officials to warn that the country is approaching a critical breaking point. Intensified violence has increasingly obstructed lifesaving humanitarian operations, while deepening economic and political instability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,38,16,93,32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-right","8":"category-middle-east","9":"category-news","10":"category-politics","11":"category-regions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9680,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9678\/revisions\/9680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}