The hunger crisis in Yemen threatens to become “absolutely devastating” as renewed fighting grips the country, the UN’s World Food Programme warned, reports AFP.

The WFP said that unless the international community stepped up its efforts to help, the outlook was bleak.

“Hunger in Yemen today is accelerating before our eyes,” said Matthew Hollingworth, WFP’s assistant executive director for programme operations.

“We are scaling up as the WFP, but we’re doing so with very limited resources and access to areas that we need to get into,” he said, warning that the crisis could compound “far beyond” Yemen’s borders.

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world and remains gripped by a vast humanitarian crisis.