[26/July/2012]
BRUSSELS, July 26 (Saba) - The European Commission (EC)announced Thursday raising its aid to Yemen € 20 million, bringing the total aid to € 40 million this year.

The European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid ,Kristalina Georgieva , considered that the humanitarian crisis taking place in Yemen is an international challenge because of the breadth of the crisis and increasing the number of affected people.

The EC's official explained, in a statement by the Commission, that one million people in northern Yemen are affected by the humanitarian crisis and more than 250 thousand people in the south, as the food crisis in Yemen is the highest in the world amid the suffering of one million children from malnutrition .

She added that ten million Yemenis ,what constitutes 40 percent of the population, live on tea and bread, while the rate of severe malnutrition in the provinces of the center of the country and the western coast reached 32%, which is twice the international average allowed for malnutrition.

BA
Saba