UN warns Yemen crisis set to worsen in 2026 as funding dries up, food insecurity deepens
GENEVA — The United Nations warned Friday that Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is poised to intensify in 2026, with deepening food insecurity and a looming collapse in health support as international aid falters.
- Advertisement -
Julien Harneis, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said the situation is “very, very concerning” and risks slipping off the global radar until deaths surge. He told reporters in Geneva that the country faces a dangerous convergence of rising needs and shrinking resources, with particular alarm on the Red Sea coast where hunger is spreading.
Last year, an estimated 19.5 million people in Yemen required humanitarian assistance, but the UN’s response plan was only 28% funded, at €591 million. Harneis said this funding gap is already curtailing life-saving operations and will likely widen this year.
“Children are dying — and it’s going to get worse,” Harneis said. “My fear is that we won’t hear about it until the mortality and the morbidity significantly increases this next year.”
He warned that the health system — propped up for the past decade by the United Nations and the World Bank — “is not going to be supported in the way it has been in the past,” leaving Yemenis “very vulnerable to epidemics” such as cholera, measles and polio. “A humanitarian crisis in Yemen is a risk to the Arabian Peninsula. Cholera, measles and polio cross borders,” he said.
The UN said operations this year will prioritize malnutrition, public health and food security, but warned those efforts will be constrained without a dramatic improvement in funding. Harneis said the world body is working with non-governmental organizations to plug gaps where possible. “For ten years, the UN and humanitarian organisations were able to improve mortality and morbidity,” he said. “With the conjunction we’re seeing this year, that’s not going to be the case. That is the simple story that everybody needs to understand.”
Harneis linked the shortfall to a broader pullback in overseas assistance. Under President Donald Trump, the United States has slashed foreign aid, and other key donor countries have tightened their budgets — a shift that has left Yemen exposed just as needs climb.
Although he did not provide a revised financing target, Harneis said even basic services are at risk without rapid injections of support. The Red Sea coast, where communities are already struggling to access food and clean water, is likely to see the sharpest deterioration, he added.
Yemen has been one of the world’s most protracted humanitarian emergencies for years. The UN’s warning underscores how quickly progress can unravel when funding stalls: programs that maintained clinics, stocked medicines and supported nutrition centers are already scaling back, heightening the risk of outbreaks and preventable deaths.
Harneis urged donors not to wait for catastrophe to act. “We won’t hear about it,” he said, “until the mortality and the morbidity significantly increases.”
UN agencies and aid groups say rapid, flexible financing would allow them to stabilize the health network, expand malnutrition treatment and shore up food supplies in the hardest-hit areas. Without it, they caution, the arc of 2026 could bend toward famine-like conditions and cross-border health threats that will be far more costly to contain.
For now, aid teams are triaging, focusing on the most acute needs and the most at-risk populations. But Harneis emphasized that humanitarian stopgaps cannot substitute for sustained support. “Children are dying,” he said. “And it’s going to get worse.”
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
