Yemen food aid at risk of rotting, says UN

SANAA, Feb 11 (AFP): Food aid in a warehouse on the frontlines of the Yemen war is at risk of rotting, the UN said on Monday, leaving millions of Yemenis without access to life-saving sustenance.

The Red Sea Mills silos, located in the western port city of Hodeida, are believed to contain enough grain to feed several million people for a month. But the granary has remained off-limits to aid organisations for months.

"The World Food Programme (WFP) grain stored in the mills - enough to feed 3.7 million people for a month - has been inaccessible for over five months and is at risk of rotting," read a joint statement by the UN aid chief and special envoy for Yemen.

"We emphasise that ensuring access to the mills is a shared responsibility among the parties to the conflict in Yemen."

Hodeida, and its food silos, have been in the hands of Yemen's Huthi rebels since 2014, when the insurgents staged a takeover of large swathes of Yemeni territories.

The coup prompted the military intervention of Saudi Arabia and its allies the following year on behalf of the embattled government, triggering what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. More than 10 million Yemenis stand at the brink of starvation.