Aden (South24 Center) 

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The food security situation in Yemen is set to deteriorate further over the next few months, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has said.

More than a quarter of displaced households in the four major governorates controlled by the internationally recognized Yemeni government have already experienced “moderate to severe food deprivation” in April, the UN agency revealed.

In a report released in partnership with the government's IDP camp management unit, FAO said that 25.3 percent of displaced families in Aden, Lahj, Marib and Taiz governorates faced acute levels of hunger, predicting that the situation will worsen through September.

The organization attributed this deterioration to severe "economic shocks", with about 72% of displaced families facing severe difficulties due to high food and fuel prices and diminished income opportunities.

According to the report, 58% of these households saw a decrease in their main sources of income while 30% said their income fell by more than half. 

The data reveals that about 47 percent of households in the four governorates suffer from inadequate food consumption, with 17.3 percent relying on diets that lack diversity, exposing them to “severe food deprivation”.

The situation is even worse inside the camps, where IDPs face significantly higher rates of food deprivation (between 30% and 42%) than their integrated counterparts in host communities, reflecting the growing gap in living standards.

Affected households have resorted to harsh coping strategies, with 66% forced to adopt “crisis coping” mechanisms, while 10% have resorted to “emergency” options, such as consuming non-preferred foods or reducing the number of meals, due to lack of financial resources. 

In a separate development, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia announced on Tuesday that Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport had been targeted with two ballistic missiles. This came after Tel Aviv announced launching strikes from warships in the northern Red Sea, in the first such attack on the port of Hodeidah.

The Israeli military announced on Tuesday evening that it had intercepted one ballistic missile launched by the Houthis from Yemen. ”Additional interceptor missiles were launched for fear of falling shrapnel from the interception,” it said.