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Ireland is set to donate €5million in aid to Yemen as the country battles with what has been described as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.

A leading charity has said families are so poor children are being forced into marriages for money.

International Development Minister Ciaran Cannon pledged to boost Irish aid while addressing a UN conference in Geneva yesterday.

The Swiss conference aims to raise €3.7billion for the country’s humanitarian fund.

Mr Cannon said: “In 2019 we will disperse a further €5million to the Yemen humanitarian fund. This will bring our total funding to Yemen since 2012 to over €21million.

“In addition, Ireland remains fully committed to the multi-lateral response to the situation in Yemen, notably through UN Central Emergency Response Fund, where Ireland is one of the top 10 donors.” Ireland’s pledge comes as Oxfam revealed the desperate measures families in Yemen, which has been gripped by a civil war since 2015, have to go to in order to survive.

It says children as young as three are being forced to marry so their families can afford food and shelter.

One young girl who suffered such a fate was nine-year-old Hanan.

She said: “My mother-in-law keeps beating me and when I run away back to my father’s house he beats me again for running away.

“I don’t want to be married. I just want to go back to school.”

The charity’s Colm Byrne, who has just returned from Yemen, commented: “As this war has gone on, people’s means of coping with devastating levels of hunger have become more and more desperate.

“They’re being forced to take steps that blight their children’s lives now and for decades to come.”