UN warns of ‘famine not seen for nearly 40 years’ in Yemen after change in US policy

The US has designated Yemen's Houthi rebels a terrorist organisation

Credit: Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images

The United States has rejected a call by the United Nations’ aid chief to reverse a decision to designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a terrorist organisation on the grounds that it would likely trigger a historic famine.

Mark Lowcock, the director general of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told the Security Council on Wednesday that with 50,000 Yemenis already “essentially starving to death in what is essentially a small famine,” blacklisting the rebel group that controls an area home to 70 per cent of the population would likely result in “a massive famine”.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced last week that he would be designating Yemen’s Houthis as a terrorist organisation, one of his final acts during his last weeks in office that he has spent introducing sanctions related to Iran as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at bringing the Islamic republic to heel. 

The Yemeni rebel group has controlled the capital Sanaa since 2014 and has launched cross-border strikes on civilian areas in Saudi Arabia, which leads an Arab coalition fighting the Iran-backed group on behalf of the exiled government. On Friday, the Saudi-led coalition said it had shot down another three Houthi drones carrying explosives towards Saudi Arabia. 

Mr Lowcock did not question the intent of the terrorist designation but said its likely result would be “large-scale famine on a scale that we have not seen for nearly forty years.” 

While the US said it will introduce measures to reduce the impact of sanctions on humanitarian activity and imports, Mr Lowcock said this would not work in practice as Yemen imports 90 percent of its food, “nearly all” of which is brought in by the private sector. 

Commercial traders have told the UN they feared they would be unable to continue imports if the Houthis were blacklisted due to “very risk-averse global supply chains”.

“They thought the suppliers, bankers, shippers and insurers they do business with could decline to do business with them if the designation proceeded,” Mr Lowcock explained.

“Aid agencies cannot – they simply cannot – replace the commercial import system,” he said, calling on the US to reverse its decision. 

US deputy ambassador Richard Mills told the Security Council that the US had heard the warnings and would take action to reduce the impact on aid deliveries and food imports.

"But we do believe that this step is the right move forward to send the right signal if we want the political process to move forward," he said.

The designation is due to come into force on January 19, the day before the inauguration of US president-elect Joe Biden.