In December 2021, Yemen took on a grim distinction: For the third year in a row, it was the country that needed the most humanitarian funding support in the world. Of the 20.7 million people needing assistance or protection, 12 million are in acute need. Though last year’s $100 million humanitarian appeal was only half funded, UNFPA reached nearly 2.8 million people with reproductive health services, protection information and services and emergency relief, supporting 127 health care facilities, 1,500 reproductive health workers, 51 safe spaces, nine shelters and eight mental health centres. This month, without additional funding, 63 of those health facilities and a third of the safe spaces, shelters and specialized facilities for gender-based survivors will be forced to shut, leaving nearly 1.3 million women without access to reproductive health care and protection and psychosocial support.

Top: A displaced girl inside her temporary shelter at an internally displaced persons camp in Marib, Yemen. © UN/Giles Clarke

Faisal and Fatima Saad and their children have lived in their tent in Al Turbah since fleeing Taiz City in 2015. “We left because of the bombings, missiles, tanks, mines,” said Faisal. “Sometimes I washed cars. We were basically scavengers in Taiz, but it worked.”  

They are among some 1,000 families, or about 6,000 people, at this internally displaced persons camp. “The cold is the biggest problem here, and we don't have clean water,” Fatima said. “There's no medicine, no cash. Some days we have food and sometimes we don't.”  © UN/Giles Clarke

Married at 15, Rima* suffered abuse at the hands of her husband, who beat and kept her chained to a wall in their home. Now 17, she is getting help at a UNFPA-supported mental health centre. “I want to go back to studying. I want to have a future,” she said. “I want to be a doctor. And I want to be a cop so I can take my husband to court.” Of Yemen’s 4 million child brides, 1.4 million were married before age 15. © UN/Giles Clarke

*Name changed for privacy and protection.

A young girl fetches water at an internally displaced persons settlement in Marib, Yemen. Of the 48 active front lines in the country, the Marib front lines are most concerning. Since the start of 2022, more than 50,000 people have been displaced from Marib. With an estimated 4 million internally displaced people – 73 per cent of whom are women and children – Yemen is the fourth largest displacement crisis in the world. © UN/Giles Clarke

Painted circles keep displaced Yemeni women socially distanced as they collect emergency relief items including food, family hygiene supplies and female dignity kits distributed as part of the UN Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM). UNFPA, which leads such rapid response efforts including those of UNICEF and the World Food Programme, distributed 62,701 kits last year, reaching 434,497 people. © UN/Giles Clarke

Women sew clothes​​ at a UNFPA-supported women and girls safe space in Al Turbah that they can sell. One of 51 safe spaces that UNFPA supports, it provides livelihood skills training among a range of gender-based violence services to women in the area or who have been displaced. © UN/Giles Clarke

Halima*, 30, was displaced within Taiz when her neighbourhood came under fire in 2015. She, her husband and three children fled south to another village, where she became the main breadwinner selling perfume at the market. Though she works 11 hours a day, she can barely afford the $60 monthly rent and has borrowed $1,000 that she worries about repaying. “My children dream of eating eggs,” she said. “All we have is bread.”

Her unemployed husband physically and verbally abuses her. “I stay only for the sake of my children,” she said. Sometimes, as her husband attacks her, she’ll hear her youngest daughter shouting, “Don’t touch mum, don’t beat mum!” Halima is currently receiving psychosocial support at a UNFPA-supported women and girls safe space. © UN/Giles Clarke

*Name changed for privacy and protection

A woman with her baby inside her temporary shelter at the internally displaced persons settlement in Al Turbah. From January - December 2021, UNFPA supported 151,115 safe deliveries, including 17,764 Caesarean sections across 21 governorates in Yemen. The agency reached a total of 1,584,175 women with reproductive health services. UNFPA is the sole provider of reproductive health medicines in the country. © UN/Giles Clarke

Ten-year-old Khadija Mohommad carries wood back to the family’s temporary shelter at Shaab internally displaced persons settlement on the outskirts of Aden. She has a painful blood disorder, but the family cannot afford medical treatment. “I want to feel better and do more to help my mother,” said Khadija, whose family fled Al Hudaydah after conflict erupted close to their home. © UN/Giles Clarke

In July 2021, the Al-Ashur family tent burned down in the Om Elhadage internally displaced persons camp in Marib, home to 150 people. The Al-Ashurs – a grandfather, two parents and 7 children – had come to the camp when fighting near their home close to the front lines intensified, forcing them to leave. The family slept in the open air until a UNFPA-led Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) team, while distributing emergency relief, volunteered to help rebuild the family’s temporary home, completing it in 48 hours.

Above, the family patriarch and his granddaughter search for anything they can salvage among the ashes of what used to be their home. They were able to find items for cooking but not much else, losing all their clothes and bedding they had brought when they fled to the camp. © UNFPA Yemen

A RRM team began to lend a hand in rebuilding the family’s tent by erecting the bones of the home. The RRM provides assistance to the newly displaced, distributing women’s dignity kits from the UNFPA, food from the World Food Programme and family hygiene kits from UNICEF, within 72 hours from the onset of displacement. The RRM is funded by the European Union Humanitarian Aid, Central Emergency Response Fund and Yemen Humanitarian Fund.© UNFPA Yemen

After the tent took two days to complete, RRM team members brought basic necessities to the family as well as to other families in the camp. UNFPA also supports the camp with mobile outreach teams consisting of a doctor, midwife, nurse, pharmacist, medical assistant and psychologist that provide reproductive health services including antenatal and postnatal care and family planning, psychosocial counselling and other gender-based violence support services. © UNFPA Yemen

Said Al-Ashur and one of his granddaughters, Kholoud, 11, carry supplies back to their new home. Children in the camp are currently not attending school and mostly help with household chores.© UNFPA Yemen

Sisters (from left) Kholoud, 11, and Asma, 13, tend to cooking with pots provided in the RRM relief package. Girls are often responsible for fetching water and firewood for cooking fuel. © UNFPA Yemen

In Om Elhadage camp, UNFPA distributed relief boxes to the 25 families living there. Since January 2021, the RRM has provided emergency relief to nearly 30,000 people in Marib Governorate, a hotspot of intense fighting. In addition, UNFPA has reached nearly 100,000 people with reproductive health and gender-based violence services there. © UNFPA Yemen

The family in the doorway of their new home, thatched with straw. © UNFPA Yemen

After a long day helping rebuild her family’s tent, Faten, 10, combs her hair with items from the RRM kit. Tonight will be the first night in three weeks she once again has a home to call her own. © UNFPA Yemen

Mother, Umm Asmaa, prepares dinner for her family. An estimated 73 per cent of the more than 4 million people displaced in Yemen are women and children. © UNFPA Yemen