Prices of basic food staples such as wheat flour and vegetable oil are rising in a country that imports around 90 per cent of its food.
“We are looking at a hunger crisis that is going to grow as it persists,” Hollingworth said, adding that frontline areas like Taiz were increasingly hard to access due to the fighting.
WFP said it was scaling up its response but unless it gets around US$109 million in funding within a few weeks it will run out of food stocks and money to help the 152,000 newly displaced persons inside the country, as well as the 1.4 million people it is already supporting.
Hollingworth also pointed to the potential ripple effects of disruption to two major chokepoints in the Middle East: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait near Yemen at the mouth of the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula.
That, as well as disruption in the Black Sea due to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, risk driving up food and fuel prices and deepening food insecurity globally.
A new analysis published by UN Women on Friday said an additional 11.7 million women and girls across 28 countries including Yemen, Sudan and Lebanon could face food insecurity by the end of the year, due to escalation in the Middle East and disruption to the Strait of Hormuz.
