Writer Kim Sengupta said that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the British government's decision to reduce aid to Yemen as a "death sentence."
He also noted the warning of former Conservative International Development Minister Andrew Mitchell that this decision "will condemn hundreds of thousands of children to starvation."
This is the second time Britain has curtailed funding for the shattered country, he commented in the Independent.
It had pledged 200 million pounds in 2019, and soon reduced it to 160 million in the same year, then it decreased to 87 million.
Sangupta reprimanded that the announcement of the aid cut was made by the Middle East and North Africa official at the State Department, James Cleverley, at a hypothetical donation conference for the United Nations, immediately after Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced that Britain would be a "force for good in the world", in connection with financing the Cofax program (A global initiative for the equitable distribution of Corona vaccines).
He noted that the government's justification for reducing subsidies is that the epidemic "has created a difficult financial situation for all of us."
Cutting aid will not only increase suffering, but the money saved will not prevent reputational damage as a result of such a move.
And the writer added that this reduction means in the case of Yemen withholding aid from a region caused by the war, along with the Corona epidemic and long-term poverty with dire consequences, as 20 million people depend on humanitarian aid to survive after more than 100 thousand were killed during the war and 8 million were displaced. Two million children suffer from acute malnutrition.
Famine threatens the children of Yemen (photos from humanitarian organizations) (Al Jazeera)
He added that in the context of the huge sums spent on the epidemic, the savings from reducing Yemen's aid is relatively small.
He went on to say that reducing aid would not only increase suffering, but that the money saved would not prevent the damage to reputation as a result of such a move, and former British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt commented that “Abandoning a forgotten country and people is inconsistent with our values, weakens our moral strength and reduces our moral strength. From our influence. "
Sangupta alluded to US President Joe Biden, last month, who withdrew his support to Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war and imposed restrictions on arms sales to it, that the reason for his move was the occurrence of a "humanitarian and strategic disaster" in the country.
While the British government has rejected invitations to join the US move on arms sales.
He concluded his article by saying that reducing the much-needed humanitarian support now impedes efforts to confront that disaster.