Yemen faces a new crisis: a potentially crippling food shortage that's threatening the economic survival of the Arab world's poorest state.
UNICEF says malnutrition and food shortages, largely the result of chronic under-development and a worsening water crisis, is acute.
"It's an emergency very much comparable to the Horn of Africa and the Sahel in North Africa, but it's not getting as much attention," said Geert Cappelaere, the UNICEF chief in Yemen.
With 58 percent of children under the age of 5 stunted by malnutrition, Yemen has the second highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world, behind Afghanistan, he noted.
The lack of access to water is a key factor in the growing food crisis, he said."Close to 60 percent of Yemenis have difficulty in getting drinking water," he said.
Sanaa, Yemen's ancient capital with a population of 2 million, looks like being dry by 2025, the first metropolis in the world to run out of water
"Unless urgent humanitarian action is taken, Yemen will be plunged into a hunger crisis of catastrophic proportions,"
Growing water scarcity, with highland aquifers shrinking 10-20 feet a year, is threatening agriculture in Yemen whose population, the World Bank says, is exploding at an estimated 8 percent a year.
Yemenis use 40 percent of their available water to grow qat, a mildly narcotic plant that's the country's largest cash crop and highly prized across the Arabian Peninsula. That's far more than they allocate to grow food.
