While food security has improved in some areas, over 10 million Yemenis, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the population, don't know where their next meal will come from, UN agencies said on Tuesday.
According to the Comprehensive Food Security Survey, which is usually held every two years, around five million people were found to be severely food insecure, suffering from levels of hunger where external food assistance is generally required and the prevalence of chronic malnutrition among children under the age of five is beyond the international benchmark of "critical".
Levels of food insecurity across the country showed a slight decline from 45 percent to 41 percent, since the last similar survey in 2011, but there were huge variations among different governorates, said the survey by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
It also documented the acute malnutrition rates in Yemen are serious across most of the country and at emergency levels in some areas.
"WFP's new operation, which will feed six million people, aims to address the problem,"WFP Yemen Country Director Bishow Parajuli said in a statement.
Parajuli added that food insecurity had an impact on the country's stability and WFP is focusing more on building sustainable livelihoods and resilience.
"For the political process to succeed, people need to be able to live normal lives and not have to worry about where their next meal is coming from," he said.
The data was gathered from all 22 of Yemen's governorates, based on more than 10,500 household interviews and measurements taken from some 14,000 women and 13,500 children.