Egypt to host Yemen aid conference in March

Egypt is hosting an international conference in March to raise humanitarian aid for Yemen, where an 18-month civil war has killed thousands, a minister in Yemen’s government said on Tuesday.

“We are now preparing for a conference … to be held here in the [Egyptian] city of Sharm El-Sheikh … We are preparing for this conference fully so we can go to the aid organisations and civil society organisations and many other donors,” Abdel-Raqeeb Fateh, Yemen’s minister of local administration, told a news conference at the Yemini embassy in Cairo.

The conference will be held next March, he said

The United Nations said last week that at least 10,000 people have been killed in the past 18 months. It said the war displaced three million Yemenis and forced 200,000 to seek refuge abroad. Some 14 million of Yemen’s 26 million population needed food aid, it added.

The fighting pits the Iran-backed Houthis and supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is backed by a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states.

Since March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition has waged an air campaign aiming at regaining cities under their control of Houthis, who control the country’s northern region.

Egypt, which is part of the Saudi-led coalition and supports the Saudi-backed government, is yet to officially announce the conference.

Source: Ahram Online