Paris, 09 September 2025
16 September 2025 will mark 11 years since the start of the ongoing conflict in Yemen. Against a backdrop of a growing humanitarian crisis, the NGO Mehad is stepping up its action, often acting as a last resort for a population totally deprived of access to healthcare.
Between renewed tensions linked to the situation in the Red Sea, critical malnutrition, climatic shocks and a resurgence of epidemics, Yemen is sinking into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, to the indifference of the international community. In 2025, the United Nations estimates that 19.5 million people in the country will need humanitarian aid and protection – an increase of more than a million on the previous year. Less than half of the health facilities are still functioning, while epidemic outbreaks – cholera, dengue fever, malaria – continue to threaten already fragile communities.
According to OCHA, half of the country’s children under the age of 5 suffer from acute malnutrition, and almost half are stunted. This leads to developmental delays and infections, as well as a risk of death from common diseases that is nine to twelve times higher than average.
Faced with this situation, the health and international solidarity NGO Mehad has just renewed its support for the Lawdar hospital in the governorate of Abyan, an area of very high insecurity where no other NGO is present, and is developing other intervention projects in the country.
Lawdar Hospital is the only secondary care facility for more than 135,000 people in the Abyan region. It is under increasing pressure, fuelled by internal displacement and the closure of many neighbouring health centres as a result of drastic budget cuts by international funders – starting with USAID. Against this backdrop of insecurity, the withdrawal of NGOs and a drop in international funding (only 9% of the humanitarian response plan had been funded by mid-2025), Mehad chose to stay, where the hospital is the only recourse for all the people in the region. Since July 2024, Mehad has provided decisive support to the hospital, through the payment of financial incentives to staff and the provision of targeted training, with the support of the Crisis and Support Centre of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. These measures have helped to stabilise the operation of the services, despite a very tense security and economic context and the departure of other humanitarian actors.
During this first phase, 75,001 patients were treated, 52% of them women and 19% children under the age of five. Over the next twelve months, Mehad plans to expand its activities. 81,440 patients are expected to benefit from the activities of phase 2, also conducted with the support of the CDCS.
As well as providing financial and technical support, Mehad is making this new phase part of a sustainability strategy. By consolidating staff skills and strengthening management and medical data collection systems, the NGO is paving the way for a structural improvement in the quality of care. It is also committed to advocating for greater mobilisation of international players in this neglected area.
“Our support for Lawdar is more than just a humanitarian project: it’s a commitment to preserving vital access to healthcare for tens of thousands of people who have nowhere else to turn,” explains Pierre Catoire, humanitarian doctor responsible for launching this second phase of the operation in Yemen*.
This second phase also aims, if the NGO’s resources and partnerships allow, to develop Mehad’s work in other parts of the country, where needs are also considerable, particularly on the west coast, where health centres have been hard hit in recent months by the withdrawal of many NGOs following the end of USAID funding.
