Damage to humanitarian food stocks is unacceptable: UN after Hodeidah fire

The United Nations are assessing possible damage to grain stores it manages near the Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeidah that was hit by gunfire on Thursday, a spokesman said. "Any damage to humanitarian food stocks, whether deliberately targeted or as collateral damage, is unacceptable when millions in Yemen continue to suffer from crippling shortages of food," the World Food Programme's senior spokesman Herve Verhoosel told a press briefing in Geneva.

Hodeidah, which has become the focus of a four-year war between Saudi-backed government forces and the Iran-aligned Houthi group, is the entry point for most of Yemen's humanitarian aid and commercial imports.