Yemen: EMERCOM plane delivers vital aid to Sanaa

Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) Ilyushin Il-76 plane delivered humanitarian aid at Sanaa’s airport, on Friday. Following the delivery, Russian and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) citizens boarded the plane, bound for Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. Alexandr Tomashev, Deputy Director of the International activities department of EMERCOM, said there is a "catastrophic lack of food here [in Sanaa] and a lot of refugees we do not have a place for." To alleviate the crisis, EMERCOM has "delivered food supplies and necessary equipment for a field camp deployment which can accommodate 2,000 people," according to Tomashev. "We intend to take back with us, in the first place, Russian Federation and foreign citizens who wished to leave the area of armed conflict," added the EMERCOM official. According to a study compiled in October by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) more than 21.1 million people are in need of humanitarian aid and assistance and around 15.2 million require basic medical attention in Yemen. Some 1.5 million people have been displaced internally as a result of the conflict, while at least 250,000 have fled Yemen in order to avoid it. Estimates also indicate that 6.1 million people are without sufficient food. In total, over 5,000 people have lost their lives during the violence, with upwards of 26,000 sustaining war-related injuries.