UN: Yemen is facing total collapse under world's watch

The UN's top humanitarian chief has warned that Yemen is spiralling towards total collapse as famine and disease ravage the wartorn nation.

Stephen O'Brien blamed the crisis on the "inaction - whether due to inability or indifference - by the international community".

O'Brien told the UN Security Council: "Yemen now has the ignominy of being the world's largest food security crisis with more than 17 million people who are food insecure, 6.8 million of whom are one step away from famine.

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"Crisis is not coming, it is not even looming, it is here today.

"The people of Yemen are being subjected to deprivation, disease and death as the world watches."

O'Brien's remarks "reflected frustration with the Security Council's failure to pressure the warring sides in Yemen to pull back from the brink and engage in serious negotiations on ending the two-year war," AFP reports.

"More than 8,000 people - mostly civilians - have been killed and close to 44,500 others injured since the conflict escalated in March 2015," the BBC says.

Meanwhile an outbreak of cholera in April has led to 55,000 suspected cases so far and another 150,000 cases are expected over the next six months," Reuters says.