24 million out of 30 million people in Yemen depend on food aid and medical aid. That is 80% of the population and to make matters worse, aid is not reaching them. This includes more than 12 million children that are malnourished and on the brink of starvation.

In an already crippled country, COVID-19 has decimated an already vulnerable population with four times the deaths from the disease than the global average. The country’s humanitarian crisis is said to be the worst in the world due to widespread hunger, disease and attacks on civilians.

Yemen has an important status in Islam and it plays a pivotal role in our rich Islamic history. The people of Yemen were some of the first people to be taught Islam, by great Sahabahs such as Abu Musa al-Ash‘ari (RA), Mu‘adh ibn Jabal (RA) and Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS). In the Qur’an, Allah mentions the land of Yemen as ‘a Good Land (with) a Forgiving Lord’. [Qur’an, 34:15].

Currently, the most affected and vulnerable populations in Sana’a and Al-Hudaydah are not being reached effectively. We have been focusing our efforts on the ground, delivering food aid to these two cities.

IHRC has been campaigning on behalf of the people of Yemen since 2015 when atrocities escalated in the country. Having special consultative status with the economic and social council of the UN, we have been highlighting the plight of the people who are caught in the crossfire of this tragic war.

According to the UN at least 10,000 children have been killed or maimed since the beginning of the conflict, and thousands more recruited into the fighting.  An estimated 1.7 million children are internally displaced. The damage and closure of schools and hospitals has also disrupted access to education and health services. More than two million children are out of school, leaving them even more vulnerable. 

The conflict has displaced more than one million people and given rise to cholera outbreaks, medicine shortages, and threats of famine. The global pandemic that has wreaked havoc even in some of the most industrialised and wealthiest nations is ravaging an already vulnerable population in Yemen. The war-torn country is seeing four times the deaths from the disease than the global average.

This campaign is Zakat eligible, it falls within at least three out of the eight categories of Zakat:

• The poor: meaning low-income or indigent
• The needy: meaning someone who is in difficulty
• The wayfarer: meaning those who are stranded, displaced or traveling with few resources

The law of zakat establishes the rights of the poor to support and help from those who are wealthy. It is the third pillar of Islam. Through zakat the prosperous can uplift the poor, help those who are troubled and comfort those who are in hardship.