Yemen: Donated UN food aid for the most needy sold in markets to boost stallholders’ profits
A Sky News team inside Yemen has discovered shocking evidence that donated UN food aid meant for the most needy is instead being sold in street markets to help boost stallholders’ profits.
We found that donated cans of vegetable oil with World Food Programme (WFP) stamps on them were among the essential food items being sold in the province of Hodeidah. Alongside the WFP stamp, there were clear signs in English on the can saying “not for sale”.
In the same market stall in al Khokha, our investigations revealed sacks of flour and rice, also with large lettering saying “not for sale”, which appeared to have been donated by aid agencies from South Korea.
Warning: This article contains images some may find distressing
When we confronted the shopkeeper, he at first denied he was selling donated food aid. He then tried to hide the incriminating World Food Programme cereal packets that we had spotted on his counter.
This vegetable oil clearly says ‘not for sale’
Sacks of flour and rice, with large lettering saying ‘not for sale’, have also been found
When we continued to press him and drew attention to large supplies of the donated cereal at the back of his store, he admitted he knew he was not meant to be selling the donated goods.
He then insisted he would halt the practice that day – an assurance which few who heard him actually believed, given the large stock of donated aid he had in his small store.
But he insisted that he was certainly not the only stallholder selling food aid – and that he was fulfilling a “service” to desperate villagers.
“People come to me who have received the food aid but they need to sell it to me so they can buy medicine for their children. They sell it and I buy it in an emergency,” he attempted to explain.
This shopkeeper at first denied he was selling donated food aid
He later insisted he was certainly not the only stallholder selling food aid
Our investigation comes as the United Nations latest figures showed that children are the biggest victims in Yemen’s eight-year-old war.
According to UN figures, a child dies in Yemen every 10 minutes from preventable causes. That is a staggeringly high number of unnecessary deaths.
There are an estimated 11 million children who are identified as needing humanitarian aid in Yemen.
We are the first foreign journalist team inside Yemen since Iran and Saudi Arabia announced a dramatic breakthrough which has taken the country the closest it has got to possible peace in the eight years of conflict.
What we’ve discovered is both heartbreaking and shocking.
Ahad emaciated and weak
We saw a three-year-old little girl called Ahad being brought into a remote, basic clinic in al Khokha to try to get help.
Ahad is literally starving to death
Her ribs were protruding through her stretched skin. Her eyes were huge in the centre of a gaunt face and her limbs seemed massively elongated because of the lack of muscle or fat anywhere on her body.
She weighed just 3kg – at three years of age – that’s less than what an average newborn weighs fresh out of their mother’s womb.
Ahad couldn’t stand or sit because she was so emaciated and weak. She has Down’s syndrome too which is rarely seen here and the nurses who’re trying to care for her seem powerless to stop her slow inexorable decline. She is literally starving to death.
She’d only relatively recently been discharged from the small field hospital which operates here – just 10 days ago when she’d reached 4kg. In less than a fortnight, she’d dropped a kilo that she simply cannot afford to lose and which could cost her life.
Her father Saeed Saleh told us: “She just keeps bringing up the food we give her. She can’t seem to keep anything down.”
The tragedy for Yemen is that she is certainly not a rare case. At the same time as Ahad was being re-admitted, a six-month-old baby boy called Abdullah Mohammed Abdullah was crying in the arms of his 16-year-old mother.
As she rocked him backward and forward and tried to comfort her baby boy, the nurses noted she too looked malnourished.
She was certainly struggling to breastfeed. That could have explained why her little boy was a mass of skin and bone with the same huge starving eyes peering out from a skeletal face and body where the line of every rib can be clearly seen.
Read more:
Victims of forgotten war
There seems to be desperation and starvation everywhere. At the al Jasha camp for internally displaced people (IDP), there are nearly 9,000 people living in squalor. It is a place where only misery is guaranteed.
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What’s happening in Yemen?
Within seconds of us arriving, we were surrounded by angry people begging us for help and insisting in loud voices they were desperate and they were hungry.
“We don’t have anything to eat. Not even a little bit of rice. Nothing. We are suffocating, we are dying,” one man yells.
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Yemen: ‘We can never do enough’
The UN humanitarian chief recently warned that essential aid programmes were being closed down because of funding cuts and food rations had been reduced for eight million people in Yemen.
For a country in the grips of a humanitarian catastrophe it’s a bleak and terrifying future for millions.
Alex Crawford reports from Yemen with Middle East editor Zein Ja’far, cameraman Jake Britton and Yemen producer Ahmed Baider
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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