On my way to Yemen
It arrived just in time - my passport that is. I am part of the camp that says, “what can go wrong DOES go wrong” it’s just a matter of time before odds catch up with you. I have heard too many horror stories about passports getting lost in transit and the hoops people have to go through to fix the problem hours before they fly out. So when my passport was scheduled to arrive the day before I left, it left me feeling a bit uptight.
Tomorrow I leave for Yemen and will be on assignment traveling with the WFP as they roll out a $30 million dollar emergency food operation that will provide food for over 600,000 people who are most affected by the global rise in food costs as well as other extremely vulnerable groups. Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East and trouble is brewing for this Gulf nation. Yemen’s oil sector provides 90 percent of export earnings and the little oil they do have is running out. Meanwhile Yemen is headed for collapse; it is grappling with high levels of poverty, rising unemployment, catastrophic countrywide water shortages, and the fertility rate is booming.
The number of registered Somali refugees living in Yemen has exceeded 100,000. Yemen is also dealing with a humanitarian problem in the northwestern governorate of Sa’ada, where an escalation of a conflict in January lead to the displacement of over 40,000 people. This is a country where the average person spends over 65% of income on food. By comparison, in the US, we spend less than 9.5%
I will be traveling throughout the country with WFP as they distribute much–needed food to these vulnerable groups. The significant portion of the time will be spent in the Somali refugee camps in the South on the Gulf of Adan.
There is a whole bunch of other stuff going down in the region and other things I have opinions about, but it’s going to have to wait till I get back.
