The family of Bakri al-Malhani is one of the poorest families in Yemen’s capital Sanaa whose members believe fasting is their last resort amid extreme poverty that is affecting about half of the country’s population.
“We have nothing for Ramadan. We and our kids will sleep all the day and hope we can manage a single meal at the end,” the father Bakri al-Malhani said.
Al-Malhani lives with a heart illness which forced the family to depend on its four boys, the elder 13 years old, to work for 2 U.S. dollars or maximum 3 dollars a day.
“My four boys collect empty water bottles at neighborhoods and sell them for about 500 Yemeni riyals, about two dollars, a day,” al-Malhani said. “What the kids earn does not help to buy bread. Honestly, we, the parents, fast many days throughout the year to let our children have the minimum average of food,” he added.
Al-Malhani’s family lives in a two-room apartment in the Shamlan district, northwest of Sanaa, with equipment of only a television and two mattresses for the parents and their five kids, including a girl baby. They rented the apartment for 10,000 Yemeni riyals (47 dollars) a month.
The family is among hundreds of thousands of poorest households in the country which have not received their social security allowances for a long time.
Mansour al-Fayadhi, executive director of the social welfare fund, said hundreds of thousands of the poorest families have been deprived from their social security allowances, some for four months and others for more than a year.
“The lack of funds is to be blame,” he said.
Furthermore, one of the problems affecting the poorest here is that external aid to Yemen is not distributed according to suitable mechanisms, al-Fayadhi added.
The United Nations has warned about 45 percent of the population, 10 million, are suffering from food insecurity and that malnutrition is affecting about 1 million children below five in Yemen.
The transitional program for development and stabilization 2012- 2014, which was prepared by the Yemeni government in coordination with key donor countries and agencies, said the Yemeni economy is not expected to grow this year.
Marzouk Mohsen, director of the Yemeni Economic and Social Development Research Center, said Yemen has been listed among the world’s top 10 countries experiencing severe food insecurity.
“About 10 million people suffer from food insecurity including one and a half million facing starvation,” he said.
Yemen is facing a range of challenges including declining national resources, the impact of the latest developments on its economy, funds shortages and budget deficit, extreme poverty and an alarming population growth rate, about 3.5 percent a year, he said.
“The population growth rate, one of the world’s highest is a key factor for increasing poverty rates and lack of access to basic services in such circumstances,” he explained.
According to studies prepared by local and foreign agencies, poverty and food insecurity come on top of the economic challenges and priorities in the country at the moment.
Officials at the International Cooperation and Planning Ministry said the government is doing its best to help the poorest families, though there is no direct response at the moment.
“The government is looking forward to the donor meeting to get some aid and to start helping the poor effectively and practically, ” a senior official said.
As Ramadan starts, the poorest are most affected at a time when Yemeni families are struggling to cope with basic supplies amid price hikes.
The prices of basic services such as sugar and wheat increased in the past two weeks by about 10 percent compared to the prices in the prior weeks and about five percent from the prices fixed by the authorities. Economists and officials said traders are exploiting the situation ahead of Ramadan at the expense of the consumers.
Muhammad al-Hallani, director general of the operations room at the trade and industry ministry, said there are sufficient supplies of basic produces.
“The concerned authorities have already failed to monitor the situation and combat the price manipulation,” he said.
“However, we hope the taskforces recently dispatched to monitor the prices and control all violations will put an end to illegal practices,” he added.
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