The U.N. on Sunday released its Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan 2012, asking for $447 million in humanitarian assistance targeted toward four million vulnerable people in the country, Reuters reports (Fuchs, 12/18). A statement from the U.N. Inter-Agency Standing Committee said more than half of those at risk will be “severely food insecure” in the coming year, Agence France-Presse notes.

“Yemen has been rocked by months of deadly anti-government protests against the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has agreed to step down in February 2012 after 33 years in power,” but the violence has left many displaced and malnourished and has caused a breakdown of basic social and health services, the news agency reports (Nahhas, 12/18).