Richard Ragan, representative of the World Food Program, estimated Yemen’s need for food at about $2 billion annually, pointing out that the recent UN truce brings hope to Yemenis.
In statements to Asharq Al-Awsat, Ragan said that the food situation in Yemen is “catastrophic”, especially if the repercussions of the Ukrainian crisis were calculated, which he expected to raise food prices by about 30 percent.
The work of the United Nations World Food Program is distributed in 333 Yemeni districts, with the exception of the northern Hajjah governorate, according to the representative of the program, who attributed this to the “military confrontations taking place in that area.”
Ragan revealed that the program registered about 2.2 million people with the fingerprint system to obtain food in the liberated areas, while in the Houthi areas, he talked about the registration of about one million families in the fingerprint system electronically, which constitutes 6-7 million people, adding that there are efforts to complete the process with The coordinating body for aid in those areas.
According to Ragan, the program has imported about 4 million tons of food since 2017, 48,000 tons were returned by the authorities, and he said, “Any large shipments of food always have problems, only one percent has a problem of 4 million tons, and one of the challenges What we are facing, especially in the north, is that they are not aware of the international standards of food quality that we follow.”
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