UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- An appeal for donations to help 150,000 refugees displaced by fighting in northern Yemen hasn't found any takers so far, the United Nations says.
The director of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in New York he is alarmed at the lack of response for efforts to raise $23 million to help people forced from their homes by fighting between government forces and Houthi Shiite rebels, CNN reported Wednesday.
"The international community has very little understanding of this crisis," OCHA Director Rashid Khalikov told the U.S. broadcaster after a four-day visit to Yemen. "The situation is very bad for the people affected by conflict."
Khalikov said the problem may be that the numbers of refugees isn't high enough to shock donors, but he added that without aid, the problem will worsen.
"Visiting the camps, we could see that people have fled with nothing," he told CNN.
Analysts say the conflict is both political and religious, in that it is about whether rebels will assert political control over northern Yemen as well as whether Shiite Islam will dominate an area of majority Sunni Yemen.
