U.N. Seeks Funds to Set Up Yemen Ship Inspections

W460

The United Nations is waiting for $10 million to set up inspections of commercial ships carrying desperately-needed fuel and other supplies to war-torn Yemen, the spokesman said Thursday.

Yemen is heavily dependent on commercial imports for food, fuel and other basic goods, but shipments have dropped dramatically since the Saudi-led coalition began blockading key ports.

Controlling port access to Yemen has become crucial amid fears that the Shiite Huthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa could receive fresh supplies of weapons.

"We are waiting for funding from member-states," said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Once the funds have been raised, the new inspection regime could be set up within weeks, said Dujarric.

The deal reached between the United Nations, Yemen and Saudi Arabia will set up a U.N. verification center based in Aden to oversee all commercial shipping of goods destined for Yemen.

The agreement was the result of months of difficult negotiations with Saudi Arabia on opening up ports to commercial deliveries.

Yemen slid deeper into turmoil when the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes in late March to stop an advance by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels who drove the president into exile.

U.N. aid chief Stephen O'Brien told the U.N. Security Council in late June that Yemen's imports had dropped to 15 percent of pre-crisis levels.

Returning from a visit to Yemen, O'Brien told the council last month that the "scale of human suffering is almost incomprehensible."

Eighty percent of Yemen's population of 26 million are in desperate need of aid, and nearly 1.5 million have been driven from their homes in the nearly five-month war.

More than 4,300 people have died in the fighting including 400 children, according to U.N. figures.

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