UNFPA Response in Yemen Situation Report #1 – January-March 2023

Eight years on, Yemen remains one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. A staggering 21.6 million people require some form of humanitarian assistance in 2023, and 80 per cent of the country’s population struggles to access food, safe drinking water and adequate health services.

These are the results of multiple overlapping emergencies that have pummeled the country: violent conflict, economic collapse, recurrent natural disasters and severely disrupted public services. Women and girls are bearing the brunt ofthe crisis. An estimated 80 per cent of the 4.5 million people displaced in Yemen are women and children. Approximately 26 per cent of displaced households are headed by women. Without access to lifesaving medicines, about 1 million women who are estimated to deliver in 2023 are particularly at risk. Another 1 million women who would want to use family planning to postpone or avoid pregnancy will be at risk of unwanted pregnancies. Over 1.5 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are projected to experience acute malnutrition sometime in the course of 2023.

An estimated 7.1 million women and girls will require services to prevent and address gender-based violence in 2023. However, such services remain overstretched across Yemen, and completely absent in some hard-to-reach areas.