{"id":27743,"date":"2019-01-02T09:24:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T09:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27743"},"modified":"2019-01-02T09:24:30","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T09:24:30","slug":"wfp-threatens-houthis-of-aid-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27743","title":{"rendered":"WFP threatens Houthis of aid cut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nJEDDAH:\u00a0Yemen\u2019s Information Minister Muammar Al-Iryani on Tuesday praised the UN\u2019s World Food Programme (WFP) for revealing the misuse and theft of food aid by Houthi militia, who have been accused of distributing aid to their followers and fabricating records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe minister said the report, while\u00a0delayed, stressed that\u00a0the organization’s aim was to\u00a0ensure aid reached those who needed it.<\/p>\n

\nThe WFP threatened to suspend some aid shipments to Yemen if the Houthis did not investigate and stop theft and fraud in food distribution, warning the suspension would affect some 3 million people.<\/p>\n

\nIts ultimatum was a strong warning and an indication of how corruption has increased the threat of famine in Yemen, where four years of war has created the world\u2019s worst humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n

\nAl-Iryani said in a statement to Saba news agency: \u201cThe WFP report indicates that the Houthi militia is deliberately starving the population in the areas under its control to increase their suffering, which gives it an opportunity to exploit this suffering through international forums to achieve political and military objectives.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Houthi militia deliberately deprives millions of Yemenis of salaries, livelihoods and aid from donor countries, increasing their suffering, and pushing many of them to participate in the war, after opening the door of recruitment and joining the fronts as a single option for those who lost their sources of income.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAl-Iryani added that the Houthi militia had developed local and affiliated entities and organizations,\u00a0 and were receiving assistance from international organizations, redirecting it to their supporters and fighters on the front lines, or exploiting it to spread extremist ideology among citizens, helping to prolong the conflict rather than using aid to ease the lives of people.<\/p>\n

\nHe also called on aid organizations to enhance the transparency of their work and to move their offices as soon as possible to the temporary capital of Aden to help them carry out their work with transparency and neutrality, away from the restrictions imposed by the Houthi militia.<\/p>\n

\nIn a letter sent to militia leader Abdul-Malek Al-Houthi, WFP director David Beasley said that an agency survey showed that aid was only reaching 40 percent of eligible beneficiaries in the militia-held capital, Sanaa. Only a third were receiving aid in the militia\u2019s northern stronghold of Saada.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf you don\u2019t act within 10 days, the WFP will have no choice but to suspend the assistance… that goes to nearly three million people,\u201d the letter said. \u201cThis criminal behavior must stop immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nEarlier the WFP accused the Houthis of stealing \u201cfrom the mouths of hungry people\u201d and diverting food deliveries. The agency said it obtained photographic evidence showing militias seizing food and manipulating lists of aid recipients. The WFP is helping around 8 million hungry people in Yemen and has been working to increase its scope to reach a total 12 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JEDDAH:\u00a0Yemen\u2019s Information Minister Muammar Al-Iryani on Tuesday praised the UN\u2019s World Food Programme (WFP) for revealing the misuse and theft of food aid by Houthi militia, who have been accused of distributing aid to their followers and fabricating records.\u00a0 The minister said the report, while\u00a0delayed, stressed that\u00a0the organization’s aim was to\u00a0ensure aid reached those who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}