Zawya Exclusive

SCRIPT

In the heart of the Yemeni capital Sanaa lies the impoverished Al-Sunaina neighbourhood.

Families living here are dogged by disease and hunger.

Umm Ahmed, a 32 year-old mother of four has to manage her household on the few dollars a day that her husband sometimes collects as a street vendor.

SOUNDBITE 1 Umm Ahmed (woman) Sanaa resident (Arabic, 13 sec):
“We don’t have a fixed income such as a salary or anything else. We sometimes go hungry for a day. If my husband gets sick or stays at home and doesn’t work, we don't have anything.”

Umm Ahmed's story of poverty is just one of millions. Over half of the population in Yemen live on less than two dollars a day.

A year-long popular uprising that ousted veteran leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, and the months of political unrest that followed, has crippled the government’s already weak and corrupt institutions.

The country plans to seek 10 billion dollars in urgent aid at a meeting with a group of donor nations this month in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Professor Mohammed al-Tamimi says that Yemen is unable to cope with its desperate situation alone.

SOUNDBITE 2 Mohammed Al-Tamimi (man), Economic expert (Arabic, 18 sec)
“There must be a lot of support, not only financial, but also political and logistical support in order for these funds to arrive, and to push aside those forces who reject change.”

Officials are trying to placate fears that Yemen's new government is ill-equipped to allocate the funds efficiently.

SOUNDBITE 3, Mohammed Al-Sa’adi (man), Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, (Arabic 20sec)
“We are seeking to form an investment fund for donors in Yemen, through which the Ministry of Planning and the donors can deal directly.”

While the government promises that urgent priorities will be highlighted in Riyadh, Yemenis wait to see whether the funds will indeed trickle down.

SHOTLIST

SANAA, YEMEN, MAY 1-3, 2012, SOURCE: AFPTV

- WS of al-Sunainah Area in Sanaa
- MS of children in al-Sunaina
- VAR of Umm Ahmed and her family in their home
- SOUNDBITE 1
- VAR of children playing in al-Sunaina
- VAR of Sanaa markets
- WS of road in Sanaa
- MS of Mohammed al-Tamimi talking to a friend
- SOUNDBITE 2
- WS exterior of Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation building
- MS of Mohammed Al-Sa’adi
- SOUNDBITE 3
- WS of road in Sanaa
- VAR of children

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AFP text story:

Yemen-politics-unrest-poverty,FOCUS
In Yemen, dire humanitarian crisis threatens transition
by Lara Sukhtian
=(PICTURE+VIDEO)=

SANAA, May 15, 2012 (AFP) - For more than half of Yemen's people, eating has become a luxury they can't always afford, with the United Nations describing the situation as a disaster.
Umm Ahmad is a mother of four who lives in the capital's shanty-town district of Al-Suanina, where thousands of people are crammed into illegal and haphazardly built homes.
"Have pity on us," she says, breaking int tears as she clutches her sick and hungry daughter Amira and describes her family’s daily struggle to survive.
Umm Ahmad’s husband works as a vendor, selling baby clothes in the market. On a good day, Umm Ahmad says, he comes home with "500 Yemeni riyals (about $2.30/1.79 euros) and we eat."
On a bad day, they go without food.
She fears for Amira's life. Lifting the five-year-old's dress and pulling up her sleeves, she reveals skinny and slightly bruised limbs, a consequence she says, of a blood disorder for which they cannot afford treatment.
Next door, sharing a single room with her two daughters and father, Fatima Hawsali says life in the past year has gone from "bad to worse."
No one in this household has an income. They rely on government hand-outs, which they say have become increasingly unreliable.
"We fight death" everyday says Fatima's father, Rizq.
Local store-owner Haidar Saleh lends people bags of rice, sugar and flour on credit, but he too is struggling.
Two notebooks sit on his shop counter: one detailing debts owed to him by residents of the neighbourhood, the other, debts he owes to his suppliers.
"I can't pay them because my customers don't pay me," said Saleh.
In the past year alone, according to the latest UN report, the cost of basic foodstuffs has surged by some 50 percent and the cost of always scarce drinking water has quadrupled, contributing to skyrocketing inflation.
Unemployment rates have also soared, and 10 million Yemenis, ouf of a population of about 22 million, struggle to put food on the table.
These are the humanitarian facts: About 55 percent of Yemenis live below the poverty line on less than $2 dollars a day. Ten million are "food insecure," and five million of them are "severely food insecure."
Almost one million children, an estimated 967,000 under the age of five, are suffering from "acute malnutrition," and more than a quarter of them "are at risk of dying" unless immediate action is taken, the report says.
The health sector, which was barely functioning before unrest broke out last against veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh, has suffered major setbacks.
Measles has made a comeback, killing a total of 170 children, most of them since January. Other communicable diseases have re-emerged, including cholera and dengue fever.
Unemployment among the country's youth, considered a major destabilising factor, has risen to 53 percent.
The popular uprising that ousted and the months of political unrest that have followed have crippled the government’s already weak and corrupt institutions.
Investors have pulled out and businesses have shut down, creating, according to the latest UN estimates, an $8 billion loss in private sector revenues. That has dealt a severe blow to the economy of what was already the poorest country in the Arab world.
The result, says the chief UN representative in Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmad, is "a much more profound and much more deep humanitarian crisis than what we have been describing."
The even bigger problem, says Cheikh Ahmad, is that "there's very little (international) interest in this."
"Everybody speaks only about the politics, about the security issue, but that's only half the story ... this is a disaster," he said.
If the humanitarian crisis is not resolved, he warns, it will threaten stability and derail the already delicate political transition process that gave rise to Yemen’s first new president in 33-years.
Evidence of the escalating humanitarian crisis is clear, not just in the country’s distant provinces where government services are weakest and international aid is hindered by ongoing conflicts, but also in the capital Sanaa.
Yemen’s grim humanitarian reality has been in the making for years, but the current crisis has "aggravated" already severe underdevelopment, says Cheikh Ahmad adding that even if the latest unrest is resolved, "we will still have major needs in this country."
In a coffee shop in one of Sanaa's few middle-class neighbourhoods, prominent economist and university professor Mohammed al-Maitami cautioned that Yemen is "totally incapable of resolving ... the mine-field of challenges" that lie ahead.
"We need major and sustained international support," said Maitami. On the humanitarian front, that support has been slow in coming.
The UN in partnership with international NGOs has launched an emergency appeal for $447 million for 2012. To date, it is only 42 percent funded. Education and protection, two key sectors, are almost entirely unfunded.
"This is certainly a worrying development for us" said Cheikh Ahmad.
Even worse, he says, the aid community now believes they will likely need more than what they have already asked for and that has still not been received.
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