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DUBAI — The United Nations and aid groups have warned of grave consequences for Yemen after an international pledging conference failed to raise enough money to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the war-torn country.

Overshadowed by the conflict in Ukraine, aid-starved Yemen — already suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN — is on the verge of total collapse.

With the country almost completely dependent on imports, aid groups say the situation will only worsen following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which produces nearly a third of Yemeni wheat supplies.

Some 80 per cent of its around 30 million people depend on aid for survival, after seven years of a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, directly or indirectly.

The UN voiced disappointment after Wednesday's conference raised less than a third of the target to help 17.3 million of Yemen's needy.

It has repeatedly warned that aid agencies are running out of funds, forcing them to slash "life-saving" programmes.

"A shortfall in funding means the needs of people will not be met," Auke Lootsma, the UN Development Programme's resident representative to Yemen, told AFP.

"The outlook for next year looks very bleak for Yemen. This is the bleakest situation we've had so far in the country."

Famine conditions 

The violent struggle between Yemen's internationally recognised government, supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels has pushed the country to the brink of famine.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has said the levels of hunger risk becoming catastrophic as the Ukraine crisis pushes up food prices.

Even before Russia invaded its neighbour, the WFP said Yemeni food rations were being reduced for eight million people this year, while another five million "at immediate risk of slipping into famine conditions" would remain on full rations.

“Clearly, pressing concerns over events in the Ukraine cast a shadow on [the pledging]event,” Abeer Etefa, a WFP spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa region, told AFP.

UN agencies had warned before the conference that up to 19 million people could need food assistance in the second half of 2022.

“The $1.3 billion committed at the pledging conference out of just over $4 billion requested was a disappointment,” Etefa said.

“We’d hoped for more, particularly from donors in the region who have yet to step up and commit funds for a crisis in their backyard.

“If we act now, we can avert what could be a point of no return and we can save millions.”

The UN was seeking $4.27 billion but raised only $1.3 billion, with some major donors going missing, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who were among the top three at last year’s conference.

The two oil-rich Gulf countries are leading members of the military coalition that intervened in the Yemen war in 2015, shortly after the Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa and subsequently much of the north.

The UAE withdrew troops from the country in 2019 but remains an active player.

“Some of Yemen’s affluent neighbours, also parties to the conflict, have so far pledged nothing for 2022. We hope this will change,” Erin Hutchinson, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Yemen country director, told AFP.

“It is a catastrophic outcome for the humanitarian response in Yemen. More people are in need this year in Yemen than in 2021. More lives will be lost.”

During Wednesday’s pledging conference, representatives from Saudi Arabia and the UAE stressed the need to stop the Houthi’s “terrorist” actions, with the Emirati official saying the rebels “obstruct and deviate aid”.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, said it has provided more than $19 billion in aid and development to the country in the past few years.

“Coalition partners appear now to prefer to control their own funding for Yemen, rather than leave it to the UN,” Elisabeth Kendall, a researcher at the University of Oxford, told AFP.

“This may be because Yemen’s worst-hit areas are under Houthi control, so it may be unpalatable to see their aid flowing into the very areas over which they are fighting.”

According to Abdulghani Al Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sanaa Centre for Strategic Studies, the coalition partners “appear to make their humanitarian response in the way that reaps greater political benefit, through their own organisations”.

The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council said Thursday it seeks to host discussions between Yemen’s warring sides in Saudi Arabia, despite the Houthi rebels’ rejection of talks in “enemy countries”.

SAQQARA, Egypt — Egypt unveiled on Saturday five ancient Pharaonic tombs at the Saqqara archaeological site south of Cairo, the latest in a series of landmark discoveries in the area.

Saqqara is a vast necropolis of the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site home to more than a dozen pyramids, animal burial sites and ancient Coptic Christian monasteries.

Egyptian archaeologists discovered the five tombs northeast of the pyramid of King Merenre I, who ruled Egypt around 2270BC.

According to Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, the five tombs — all of which are in good condition — belonged to senior royal officials.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said one of the tombs belonged to a top official named Iry. A limestone sarcophagus and colourful decorations were found in the tomb.

The remaining tombs belonged to other members of the royal court, including a “steward of the royal house” and a priestess who was “responsible for the king’s beautification”.

In January 2021, Egypt unveiled ancient treasures found at Saqqara, including more than 50 wooden sarcophagi dating back to the New Kingdom (16th to 11th centuries BC) — a discovery famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass said “rewrites history”.

The Egyptian authorities hope to inaugurate the new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza plateau later this year, after its opening was repeatedly delayed.

It is hoped that the new museum, in addition to various archaeological discoveries in recent years, will help revive the country’s vital tourism industry.

The sector has been battered by successive blows, including a 2011 uprising, the coronavirus pandemic, and now a halt of Russian and Ukrainian tourists, who account for a large portion of visitors to the country.

ADEN — Bullet-riddled homes, buildings turned to rubble and countless pictures of "martyrs": seven years into Yemen's civil war, the interim capital Aden bears the scars of a conflict that shows no signs of abating.

While Aden is now relatively stable, economically the ancient port city has been left on its knees.

Water and electricity are intermittent, serving a population that officials say has tripled to more than three million, as people seek safety from fighting raging elsewhere.

Aden governor Ahmed Lamlas said the outbreak of war in 2015 was a "disaster", leaving the city's infrastructure in ruins.

"We are still suffering from the impacts of war," said Lamlas, who narrowly escaped a deadly car bomb attack in October.

Yemen has a long history of civil war, and was divided into North and South Yemen until 1990.

It descended into brutal conflict again when Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a military campaign to seize power in 2014, taking large swathes of territory including the capital Sanaa in the north.

Saudi intervention 

The following year, after a Saudi-led military coalition intervened to support the internationally recognised government, the insurgents were at the gates of Aden.

They held sway for a few months before being pushed out by loyalist forces.

Sporadic violence continues to blight the temporary seat of the government, whose troops clashed with southern separatists in 2018-19 before they reached a power-sharing agreement.

Flags of former South Yemen line the streets of Aden, where the separatist Southern Transitional Council has much influence, with checkpoints set up everywhere.

As if civil war and a struggle for the city were not enough, Aden has also been targeted by a number of bombings claimed by the Daesh  group.

Along the corniche in Aden stands a large portrait of the former governor, Jaafar Saad, who was killed in a car bomb claimed by the terrorist group in 2015.

"Aden will not forget you," its message reads.

Scars of war 

At the airport, a gaping hole torn into the arrivals terminal reminds visitors of a missile attack on cabinet members in 2020, a memorial of sorts to the at least 26 people killed.

Across Yemen, hundreds of thousands have been killed, directly or indirectly, and millions displaced by the war, which has left 80 per cent of people on food aid.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned that Yemen risked "catastrophe", speaking at a donor conference that raised less than a third of the money needed.

The number of people starving in famine conditions is projected to increase five-fold this year to 161,000.

Lamlas said the pressure was exacting a toll on Aden's citizens.

"Living conditions have affected the people psychologically," said Lamlas, but insisted: "Aden remains steadfast and will return to life."

Aden's residents are struggling to afford basic goods amid soaring inflation.

Fish vendor Ammar Mohammed, 52, struggles to make a living, as few in the city can afford his product.

"Only those who have money can buy fish," he said.

"Everything was cheaper before the war."

'No Internet, phone' 

On a quiet Friday evening, some Yemeni families headed to a seaside resort, one of the city's few recreational areas.

"I have work experience in hotels, makeup and accounting," Abeer, 31, told AFP as she sat with her two friends smoking shisha and electronic cigarettes.

"The salaries are low, the situation is difficult, and I am fighting to lead a dignified life," she said, adding that friends and jokes are what keep her going.

"There is no Internet, phone network, there's nothing. We're looking for water, gas and petrol, but we at least still have some laughs."

Many in Aden blame the government for the city's deterioration, and some of them make no secret of their desire to become an independent southern state.

South Yemen was an independent country from 1967 -- when British colonial forces withdrew, paving the way for the creation of a Soviet-backed communist one-party state -- until 1990.

An attempt to break away again in 1994 sparked a brief civil war. That ended with northern troops and their militia allies occupying the south.

But calls for secession are growing louder, as people recall better times and more opportunities for women.

"It's all bad, whether separated or not," said Abeer.

"We don't want to unite with the Houthis in the north... but in [rebel-held] Sanaa there is more security and safety and there is electricity. Here there is nothing."


TEHRAN — An Emirati cargo ship sank in Gulf waters off Iran, triggering a search and rescue operation in heavy seas on Thursday which recovered all but one of its 30 crew, Iranian media reported.

"All but one of the 30 crew members have been rescued," the crisis management director for Bushehr province on Iran's Gulf coast told state news agency IRNA.

He said the search was continuing for the final missing crew member with two rescue vessels combing the waters.

State media reported that the vessel - a car transporter -- had capsized in heavy winds off the Iranian port of Asalouyeh.

"An Emirati car transporter ship sank nearly 50 kilometres  from the port of Asalouyeh," a local maritime protection official told IRNA.

"Because of the unfavourable weather and high winds" the ship sank before three rescue vessels could reach its location, the official said, adding that winds were gusting at more than 70 kilometres per hour.

There was no official word on the ship's origin or destination or the nationalities of its crew.

But MarineTraffic, an online tracking service, identified the ship as the "Al Salmy 6" and said it had been travelling from Dubai to Umm Qasr.

It said in a tweet that the vessel longer than a football field had "encountered treacherous weather", with warnings at the time of waves as high as 4.4 metres.

Iran's weather service had put out a red alert on Wednesday for high winds and heavy seas in the waters off Asalouyeh.

As well as a port, Asalouyeh is a major petrochemicals centre on the Gulf coast southeast of the city of Bushehr.

Despite its close relations with the West, the United Arab Emirates has remained a major trade partner of Iran.

The two countries downgraded diplomatic relations in 2016 following the severance of ties between Iran and Gulf Arab heavyweight Saudi Arabia, an Emirati ally.

But a rare visit to Tehran by a senior UAE official in December prompted talk of improving relations.

GENEVA — Yemen is teetering on the brink of catastrophe and must not be overshadowed by Ukraine, the UN insisted Wednesday, urging donors to rescue the country from ruination.

"Yemen may have receded from the headlines, but the human suffering has not relented," United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said as he opened a global pledging conference.

"For seven years and counting the Yemeni people have been confronting death, destruction, displacement, starvation, terror, division, and destitution on a massive scale."

The UN considers war-torn Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian disaster, but the money preventing the situation from getting worse is now running out, it warned.

"A funding crunch risks catastrophe," said Guterres.

The UN is seeking $4.27 billion (3.87 billion euros) to help 17.3 million people — but is facing a vast funding gap.

Guterres said the economy was in despair, millions were now facing extreme hunger and two in three Yemenis were living in extreme poverty.

"Beyond these horrendous facts and figures lies a country in ruins, its social fabric torn, its hopes for the future shattered," he said.

As funding had been drying up since late last year, aid agencies were being forced to cut back or stop food and health services, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told reporters.

“Today we hope to raise the money to replenish the food pipeline, stock up health clinics and provide shelter to the displaced.

“And to send a message to the people in Yemen that we do not forget them,” said Griffiths.

The British diplomat said Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched last month, would have far-reaching secondary impacts.

It will “surely harm the lives of many Yemenis”, he said, given that the country depends almost entirely on food imports, with nearly a third of its wheat supplies coming from Ukraine.

Out of 31.9 million people in Yemen, 23.4 million were in need of humanitarian assistance, of which 12.9 million were in acute need, said the UN.

Yemen has been wracked by a devastating war since 2014, pitting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels against the internationally recognised government, supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly and indirectly in the war, and millions have been displaced.

‘Teetering on the edge’ 

“As a matter of moral responsibility, of human decency and compassion, of international solidarity, and of life and death — we must support the people of Yemen now,” said Guterres.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington would contribute nearly $585 million more to Yemen.

“We’re faced with a multiplicity of challenges around the world and it’s particularly difficult when the spotlight has moved elsewhere. That’s when the real test comes,” he said.

“Once again, we are meeting at what is a dire time for Yemen.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) said the levels of hunger could become catastrophic if the Ukraine crisis pushed up food prices.

The humanitarian situation is poised to worsen between June and December, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, WFP and the UNICEF children’s agency said in a joint statement.

“Yemen’s already dire hunger crisis is teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe, with 17.4 million people now in need of food assistance and a growing portion of the population coping with emergency levels of hunger,” the three UN agencies warned.

WFP said the number of people needing food assistance had increased by 1.2 million over the past year, and is forecast to reach 19 million people in the second half of 2022.

PARIS — In the 60 years since Algeria won independence from France, it has gone through multiple crises with its former occupier, often fuelled by domestic politics.

Yet experts say the two sides had surprisingly good relations for four decades, and it was only in the 1990s that things started to fall apart.

“Generally, despite appearances and criticism, there has been a stable, very balanced relationship,” said Luis Martinez, a Maghreb researcher at Sciences Po university in Paris.

That is despite the devastation caused by the eight-year war of independence that finally ended after the signing of the Evian accords on March 18, 1962.

French historians say half-a-million civilians and combatants died — 400,000 of them Algerian — while the Algerian authorities insist 1.5 million were killed.

Under French General Charles de Gaulle, whose administration signed the accords, and his successor Georges Pompidou, Paris had good relations with Algiers.

The same was true of the administration of Francois Mitterrand, even though he had been interior minister when Algeria’s armed independence struggle began in 1954 and remained opposed to the country’s independence.

“Mitterrand was surrounded by Socialist Party people, who were all pro-FLN,” said historian Pierre Vermeren, referring to the National Liberation Front which led the revolt and has dominated Algerian politics ever since.

“[Mitterrand] was able to take a back seat” and let others deal with Algeria, said Vermeren, a professor at the Sorbonne University.

France was allowed to continue its nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara until 1967, and de Gaulle managed to negotiate a secret deal with the new Algerian state to allow for chemical weapons tests until 1978.

But in 1992, Paris raised hackles by criticising Algiers for suspending elections after Islamist parties had won the first round.

Algeria withdrew its ambassador in response.

The cancellation of the polls sparked another decade of devastating conflict, only ending after an amnesty offer by Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who became president in 1999.

Despite being close to France, Bouteflika made use of anti-French discourse, primarily for domestic consumption, Vermeren said.

“To win back control of the ideological and political sphere after the civil war, [the Algerian leadership] ‘forgot’ that France had helped them fight the Islamists,” he said.

“They went back to their traditional enemy.”

‘Good ties in secret’ 

Under Bouteflika, Algerian leaders used ever-stronger language against France, accusing it of “genocide” during its more than 130-year occupation of Algeria.

Then, in 2019, a vast protest movement toppled the autocratic leader after two decades in power — but the new regime has kept up the anti-French discourse.

Observers say however that cooperation behind closed doors has been surprisingly close.

From 2013, Algeria had allowed French forces to use its airspace to reach Mali in order to battle terrorists.

According to Naoufel Brahimi El Mili, who has written a book on 60 years of “secret stories” between the two countries, “French-Algerian relations are good when they’re in secret. They’re more hostile when they’re in public.”

Relations were good under Emmanuel Macron, who became president after an election campaign in which he had visited Algiers, where he described colonisation as a “crime against humanity”.

After taking office, he made gestures aimed at healing past wounds on both sides of the Mediterranean.

But he refused to apologise for colonialism, a highly sensitive topic in France, which for decades saw Algeria as an integral part of French territory and where far-right discourse has been escalating.

Comments reported last October dampened hopes around reconciliation.

Macron accused Algeria’s “political-military system” of rewriting history and fomenting “hatred towards France”.

In remarks to descendants of independence fighters, reported by Le Monde, he also questioned whether Algeria had existed as a nation before the French invasion in the 1800s.

Once again, Algeria withdrew its ambassador.

‘Algeria votes Macron’

Now, as French presidential elections loom in April, relations appear to be looking up again.

Millions of French citizens of Algerian origin and descendants of Europeans who left after independence are among those casting votes.

“Algeria will vote for Macron,” said author El Mili. “Algerians are convinced that a Macron II will be bolder.”

Xavier Driencourt, a former French ambassador to Algeria, shared that view.

“They don’t want [conservative candidate] Valerie Pecresse who has a fairly right-wing tone, and definitely not [Eric] Zemmour or Marine Le Pen,” he said, referring to two far-right presidential hopefuls.

But much remains to be done. Martinez from Sciences Po said Macron’s comments had done a lot of damage.

“They’ll go back to the drawing board, and try to see what they can agree on,” he said.

Former envoy Driencourt said “it takes two sides to have a relationship”.

“I’m not very optimistic,” he said.

RIYADH — Gulf Arab countries are seeking to host rare talks between Yemen's warring parties, including the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, in Riyadh at the end of the month, officials said on Tuesday.

Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, has been wracked by a devastating war since 2014, pitting the Houthis against the internationally recognised government.

Repeated diplomatic efforts to get the two sides to agree a peace deal have failed over the years.

The Saudi-based Gulf Cooperation Council "is considering holding talks between Yemen's warring parties to put an end to the conflict", an official from the six-nation bloc, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday.

An official from the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, which has been embroiled in a seven-year conflict with the Houthis, said the conference would take place between March 29 and April 7.

"We don't have a problem if the Houthis attend the talks to try to find a solution to security, military and political issues," the official told AFP.

But he added it was unlikely the insurgents would accept the invitation to go to Riyadh, which has been leading a military coalition to back the government against the rebels since 2015.

Another official in Riyadh confirmed efforts for talks were underway, saying: "Saudi Arabia will not be party to negotiations."

Efforts would be led by Oman, which hosts Houthi officials and has regularly played the role of mediator in regional conflicts.

A Houthi spokesman told AFP the rebels had yet to receive an invitation.

"Saudi Arabia wants to present itself as a neutral country... but this call [for talks] is for media attention, nothing serious," he said, without confirming whether or not they would take part.

The talks are scheduled to take place as the Saudi-led coalition marks seven years since its intervention in the Yemen war on March 26, 2015,  shortly after the rebels seized the capital Sanaa.

Riyadh has repeatedly called on the US administration to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist organisation.

The grinding war has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, directly or indirectly, and displaced millions, in what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Around 80 per cent of Yemen’s population of nearly 30 million depend on some form of aid for survival.

On Monday, UN agencies warned the number of people in the country starving in famine conditions is projected to increase five-fold this year to 161,000 amid fears of a dire shortfall of life-saving aid.

Over 30,000 people are already struggling in famine conditions, they said, calling the sharp rise “extremely worrying”.

Efforts to convene Yemen’s warring parties in Riyadh comes on the heels of a high-level conference to raise aid for Yemen, as fears mount that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens global food supplies.

Yemen depends almost entirely on food imports, with nearly a third of wheat supplies coming from Ukraine, the UN said.

The UN has repeatedly warned that aid agencies are running out of funds, forcing them to slash “life-saving” programmes. Last year the UN pleaded for $3.85 billion for aid, but raised just $1.7 billion.