Aden, Jun 23: Three United Nations agencies warned that nearly 5 million people in Yemen's southern provinces face food insecurity, with conditions expected to deteriorate further without urgent intervention.

In a joint statement, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that without immediate and sustained assistance, an additional 420,000 people could fall into severe food insecurity between September and February 2026, Xinhua news agency reported.

That would bring the total number of severely food-insecure people to 5.38 million -- more than half the population in Yemen's southern regions.

The agencies cited a combination of factors driving the crisis, including prolonged economic decline, sharp depreciation of the Yemeni currency, continued conflict, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

They called for urgent, large-scale humanitarian support to prevent communities from sliding deeper into hunger, to safeguard access to essential services, and to create economic and livelihood opportunities for affected populations.

The warning comes as Yemen's currency suffers one of its steepest declines in history. The riyal recently weakened to around 2,750 per US dollar in the southern port city of Aden and other government-controlled areas.

Yemen has been mired in conflict since late 2014, when the Iran-aligned Houthi group seized several northern provinces, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee the capital Sanaa. The conflict escalated in 2015 after a Saudi-led coalition intervened to restore the government.

Now entering its second decade, the war has fueled what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Despite numerous mediation efforts, a lasting peace deal remains out of reach.

(IANS)

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