By Nur Ashikin Abdul Aziz
BANGI, March 6 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Yemen thanked the Malaysian government for making a US$100,000 pledge at a United Nations (UN) high-level event in Geneva, Switzerland last week to help the war-torn country address its humanitarian needs.
Yemen ambassador to Malaysia, Dr Adel Mohamed Ali BA Hamid, said the generous contribution demonstrates Malaysia’s long-standing support for the legitimate Yemeni government and its people during what the UN has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
“This is not strange for our Malaysian brothers, for the Malaysian government to stand with Yemen under these difficult circumstances.
“Yemenis always have a good time here and the Malaysian government has provided them with many facilities,” he told Bernama International News Service after delivering a seminar titled ‘Understanding The Conflict of Yemen’, here, on Wednesday.
Malaysia’s pledge came at the third High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen, hosted by the UN and the governments of Switzerland and Sweden on Feb 26, where donors have pledged a total of US$2.6 billion.
The conflict in Yemen worsened after the Houthi militias, with the backing of troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Salleh who was killed in December 2017, took control of its capital city Sana’a in September 2014.
In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition launched a military campaign to reinstate the internationally-recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
According to the UN, the total number of civilian casualties it has independently verified since March 2015 stands at 18,173.
Some 20 million people need help securing food, including nearly 10 million who are just a step away from famine, said UN emergency chief Mark Lowcock in a briefing to the UN Security Council last week.
Meanwhile, Adel Mohamed said the embassy would like to attract more Yemenis to study here.
The number of Yemenis in Malaysia rose to about 17,000 since 2015, with 6,000 of them studying in local universities.
“Many of them are under social pass because they have nowhere to go. The Malaysian government has been providing some privileges for the Yemenis but we are still waiting for the new government to renew the privileges so the Yemenis here can stay (work and study) under legal status,” he said.
The seminar, organised by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), is the first of the IKMAS Seminar Series this year.
— NNN-BERNAMA
