After almost eight years of conflict and with rising climate disasters, 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.
“The sky was full of clouds, then suddenly heavy rain washed away our shelters. Everything we owned – personal documents, blankets, food – it was all destroyed.”
Qubool, 42, is the sole breadwinner for her six children. When fighting erupted near their village in early January, she fled with her family in search of safety.
They have since been living at the Baga camp for displaced people in the Al Dhale governorate, in southwest Yemen. Thinking back on that traumatic arrival, Qubool said, “We left everything behind. I didn’t have anything with me that could provide for the most important necessities of life, such as food or medicine.”
But on top of being uprooted from their home and bereft of their belongings, the family’s precarious situation was soon to be dealt another blow: They are among tens of thousands of people already displaced by the gruelling conflict in Yemen who 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.
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.
Source: UNFPA