Husain Mohamed – 12/08/2020 

More than 170 people have been killed by flash floods, caused by torrential rains, in Yemen. Dozens of others have also been injured. For weeks, Yemen has been witnessing heavy rains which have caused floods.

The flooding has caused extensive damage to homes and UNESCO-listed world heritage sites across the country. A Yemeni official from the Organisation for the Preservation of Historic Cities of Yemen (GOPHCY) cautioned that 5,000 buildings in the Old City of Sanaa are at risk of collapse.

Nearly 600 families have been displaced as a result of the floods.

A government official stated that 19 children were among 30 people killed by the floods in the mainly-government-held province of Maarib east of the capital Sanaa. More than a thousand families saw their tents and belongings swept away in the province’s displaced persons camps.

The country is already in the grips of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, as described by the United Nations, after many years of conflict between a Saudi-backed government and Iran-allied Houthi rebels.

Five years of war have killed more than 100,000 people, left 80 percent of the population reliant on aid and pushed millions to the brink of famine.