Yemen

The following Security Council press statement was issued today by Council President Anatolio Ndong Mba (Equatorial Guinea):

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a new report today which presents mounting evidence that the biodiversity underpinning global food systems is disappearing, putting the future of food, livelihoods, health and environment under severe threat, according to information from 91 reporting countries.

A measles and rubella vaccination campaign in Yemen led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has now reached nearly 12 million children, including in high-risk areas, marginalized communities and camps for internally displaced people.

Significant progress in implementing recent agreements in Yemen represents an opportunity for that country to move away from the “logic of war” towards one of peace, senior United Nations officials told the Security Council today.

The United Nations and humanitarian partners today appealed for $4.2 billion to help up to 19 million people in need in Yemen, including 10 million on the brink of famine.  Mark Lowcock, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, said he expects current aid funding to run out by the end of March.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that heavy rains and cyclones have caused an outbreak of desert locusts in Sudan and Eritrea that is rapidly spreading to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, potentially causing a major threat to agricultural production and food security.

The United Nations refugee agency, International Migration Agency (IOM) and their partners today launched the 2019 response plan for the Rohingya humanitarian crisis.  It seeks to raise $920 million to meet the needs of over 900,000 refugees from Myanmar and over 330,000 vulnerable Bangladeshis in host communities.

The United Nations refugee agency and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called upon European countries and regional organizations today to take urgent action to ensure no child is born, or remains, stateless in Europe.  In 2017, some 2,100 children were registered as “stateless”, a four-fold increase over 2010.

The Government of the Philippines declared a major outbreak of measles last week in Metro Manila and Central Luzon, which has now expanded to other areas, according to humanitarian affairs officials.  More than 4,300 suspected cases of measles have been reported since January, with at least 70 deaths.

Efforts to find and treat an additional 1.5 million undiagnosed, unreported and untreated tuberculosis patients by the end of 2019 have been showing signs of success, according to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, driven by six Asian countries bearing the world’s highest TB burdens.