Turkey dispatches emergency food aid to Yemen’s Taiz

By Afra Aksoy

TAIZ, Yemen (AA) - Five hundred food packages were delivered to the Yemeni city of Taiz on Wednesday by Turkey’s Diyanet Foundation, according to Yemen's official SABA news agency.

The Association for Improvement and Favor, a local charity, has been tasked with distributing the aid to the city’s poor.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, association chairman Abdulkareem Shaaban voiced his appreciation for the desperately-needed Turkish largesse.

“We thank Turkey for its help in assisting the needy people of Taiz,” he said.

Impoverished Yemen has remained in a state of civil war since 2014, when the Shia Houthi militia group and its allies overran capital Sanaa and other parts of the country.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s pro-Saudi government.

According to the UN, more than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict to date, while many Yemenis remain unable to obtain basic commodities, including food.

In April, the UN announced that one child was dying every 10 minutes in Yemen on average as a direct result of the conflict and chronic aid shortfalls.

Further aggravating the situation, more than 500 Yemenis have reportedly died since a cholera epidemic broke out in Sanaa one month ago, with the World Health Organization warning that the number of suspected cases now stands at some 65,300 countrywide.

Yemen currently faces one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, with an estimated 20 million people in dire need of assistance.

*Ali Murat Alhas contributed to this report from Ankara