The UN’s food agency has accused Houthi rebels of stealing food “from the mouths” of hungry Yemenis, hours after an investigation by the Associated Press (AP) news agency found that both sides in the conflict had stolen aid meant for the country’s most vulnerable. David Beasley, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said on Monday that his agency had collected evidence showing the Houthis had diverted shipments of food sent to help alleviate “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.
“At a time when children are dying in Yemen because they haven’t enough food to eat, that is an outrage,” Beasley said. “This criminal behaviour must stop immediately”.
Yemen’s four-year war and ensuing economic collapse have unleashed the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis with more than 22 million people needing some kind of aid to survive. Food prices have increased by an average of 68 percent, and the price of commodities such as petrol, diesel and cooking gas has increased by at least 25 percent in the past year. The WFP said the photographic and other evidence it had obtained showed trucks illicitly removing food from designated food distribution centres and local officials falsifying records and manipulating the selection of beneficiaries. It accused one local partner organisation affiliated with the Houthi Ministry of Education of committing fraud and said humanitarian food was being sold on the open market in Sanaa. “This conduct amounts to the stealing of food from the mouths of hungry people,” Beasley said. Al Jazeera reached out to Houthi officials for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
Source: aljazeera.com
Saturday, April 18, 2026
