Tens of thousands of people displaced by the gruelling conflict in Yemen have now lost their homes and remaining possessions to torrential rains battering vast areas of the country.
Since April, flash floods have ravaged critical infrastructure including roads, water sources, and health-care centres. Of the over 300,000 people estimated to be affected by the emergency, over half of them are women and girls, many of whom have already been displaced multiple times and are in a vulnerable physical and psychological state.
To reach those displaced by the flooding, UNFPA is leading a humanitarian multi-agency Rapid Response Mechanism, together with UNICEF and WFP. Teams are distributing kits containing women’s clothing and essential hygiene items such as soap and sanitary pads, along with jerry cans and ready-to-eat food. Each kit is designed to cover a family’s basic necessities for five to seven days and help alleviate their ordeal.
Women and girls suffer the harshest fallout
After almost eight years of conflict and with rising climate disasters, a staggering 23 million people in Yemen need immediate humanitarian assistance. Millions have lost their homes, the economy has collapsed and the health system is barely functioning.
Of the 4.3 million people displaced within Yemen, more than three-quarters are women and children. Some 1.3 million women are currently pregnant, of whom nearly 200,000 are at risk of developing life-threatening complications yet have only precarious – if any – access to reproductive health services.
The UNFPA-led Rapid Response Mechanism has been activated in 16 flood-affected governorates and more than 100 districts across Yemen. Since mid-July, over 50,000 people have been reached with distributions thanks to financial contributions by the European Union, USAID, and the Yemen Humanitarian Fund, and thousands have been referred on to health and protection services.
But a severe funding shortfall means even essential programmes have been scaled back, endangering the lives especially of pregnant women, newborns, and gender-based violence survivors, as services are cut and care staff can’t reach those in urgent need of support. As of September 2022, UNFPA had received only one-third of the $100 million required to ensure reproductive health and protection assistance to millions of women and girls in Yemen.
