UNICEF: Over 20 Million in Yemen in Need of Aid

 The figure is up by almost 5 million people since the organization's latest report last week, al-Manar reported.

The coalition's de facto blockade of Yemen's air space and ports has cut off supplies of food and fuel to the parched country, where gas-powered pumps providing water for drinking and sanitation now lie mostly inoperable.

Over 20 million people are now estimated to be in need of some form of humanitarian assistance, of whom 9.3 million are children," Jeremy Hopkins, the Deputy Representative of UNICEF, said from the capital, Sana’a.

"The de facto blockade on Yemen's ports, though there is some easing, means fuel is not coming into the country, and since pumps are mechanized that means over 20 million people don't have access to safe water," he added.

Other urgent humanitarian needs, he said, include malnutrition, shortages of medical supplies, mounting civilian casualties in airstrikes, recruitment of child soldiers and damage to schools.

Even before the conflict, UNICEF said around 10 million people in Yemen needed humanitarian assistance, a product of decades of underdevelopment in the mountainous and barely governed Peninsula state.

Saudi Arabia has been bombing Yemen in the last 79 days to bring its ally, fugitive president Mansour Hadi, back to power.

The airstrikes have so far claimed the lives of more than 4,510 civilians, mostly women and children.

According to a recent report by Freedom House Foundation, most of the victims of the deadly Al Saud campaign are civilians, including a large number of women and children.