“The United Nations on Thursday urged the international community, especially Gulf states, to increase aid to impoverished Yemen, saying that more than 10 million people in the country go hungry,” Agence France-Presse reports. “A Sanaa news conference by U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos and World Food Programme [WFP] executive director Ertharin Cousin heard that ‘the humanitarian situation in Yemen remains critical,’ despite ‘positive’ political developments,” the news service writes, adding, “According to the U.N., child malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world with close to half of Yemen’s children under five years — around two million children — stunted” (9/12). “This year, WFP aims to provide almost five million people in 16 governorates with food assistance and is working to build community resilience,” the U.N. News Centre notes (9/12). “‘Yemen is a country wracked by chronic poverty and underdevelopment, and millions of Yemenis are struggling to cope,’ said Amos. ‘People need food, water, education and health care. But they also want to know that there is investment to secure their future. We urgently need more funding to help those in need,'” according to a WFP press release (9/12).