[Al Jazeera] United Nations...the Oyster Bay money pit...
officials have warned that the conflict in the Arab world's poorest nation is intensifying daily, with gangs expanding, thousands facing the cholera epidemic, and seven million "on the cusp of famine".
Speaking before the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, UN special envoy to Yemen, called on all parties "to act for the sake of peace," saying "excuses are unacceptable...especially when the solutions are in plain sight."
"The opportunity to reach peace is not yet lost," he said, urging the politicians to recognise that "the continuation of the war can only lead to more human and physical loss".
In the same meeting, UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said the warring parties and their outside backers should feel "deeply guilty" at driving a worsening conflict that has exposed millions of Yemeni civilians "to unfathomable pain and suffering", including seven million people now "on the cusp of famine."
He urged the Security Council to "lean much more heavily and effectively on the parties, and those outside Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
who are leading this policy and action."
O'Brien said suspected cholera cases have been reported in nearly all the country's districts and at least 1,740 people have already died.
The $2.1bn humanitarian appeal for Yemen is only 33 percent funded, and the response to the cholera epidemic requires an additional $250m, of which just $47m has been received, he said.