IT’S a war-torn country on the brink of a catastrophic famine.

The sheer scale of the deprivation is staggering: of Yemen’s 25.6 million people, almost 19 million are in urgent need of assistance, according to the United Nations.

For more than two years, Yemen has been in the grip of a conflict between a Saudi-led military coalition and Shiite rebels that has driven the Arab world’s poorest country to catastrophe.

But the conflict has been overshadowed by the war in Syria — which has generated a far larger refugee crisis — according to humanitarian workers.

All UN mediation attempts and seven declared ceasefires have so far failed.

Yemen’s conflict has killed more than 10,000 civilians, wounded tens of thousands more, and forced 3.3 million people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

Doctors Without Borders, known by the French acronym MSF, says it has treated 66,000 people.

“The situation is nothing short of catastrophic,” Robert Mardini from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who recently returned from Yemen, told the BBC.

“What everyone tells you is that life has become unbearable.”

Even before the conflict, Yemen was the poorest country in the Middle East.

On Tuesday, a U.N. conference drummed up more than $1 billion in pledged aid for the war-torn country on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

UN chief Antonio Guterres called the conference a “remarkable success.”

Yet the $1.1 billion (1.0 billion euros) promised fell far short of the $2.1 billion the UN has estimated is needed this year alone in a country facing “a tragedy of immense proportions.”

When opening the conference Tuesday morning, Guterres had said it was vital to act quickly.

“We are witnessing the starving and the crippling of an entire generation,” he said, adding that Yemen is gripped by “the world’s largest hunger crisis”.

He warned that children especially were already dying at an alarming rate, but stressed that “a famine can be prevented if we act quickly and commit to funding crucial lifesaving assistance”.

The UN had already said back in February that it would need $2.1 billion to help avert famine in Yemen, but by the time Tuesday’s conference opened, that appeal had only been 15 per cent funded.

Yemen’s Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid Mubarek Bin-Dagher had urged donors to be generous, describing how some of his compatriots were “writhing with hunger”.

“$2.1 billion is the minimum that we should plan on raising,” he told the conference.

Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, who along with his Swedish counterpart co-hosted the conference, also applauded the results but acknowledged that “we need even more.”

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien meanwhile said that Yemen was “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis today”.

“We must do more and can do more,” he said, insisting that “we can, with your money and support, scale up, we can avert famine and the worst catastrophe.”

But Mr O’Brien underlined that humanitarian aid alone would not resolve Yemen’s crisis.

“We need an immediate cessation of hostilities and a return to negotiations and peace,” he said.

Yemen’s war has pitted pro-government forces against Iran-backed Huthi rebels and their allies, renegade troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Here is a look at the crisis in Yemen:

‘WORLD’S LARGEST HUNGER CRISIS’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says around 17 million people in Yemen are food insecure, “making this the world’s largest hunger crisis.” The UN says some 18.8 million people — more than half of Yemen’s total population of 27 million — need humanitarian or protection assistance. Nearly 14 million lack access to drinking water.

CHILDREN SUFFERING

Nearly 2.2 million children are malnourished, including half a million who are severely malnourished and at imminent risk of death if they do not receive care, according to the UN children’s agency and the World Food Program. Of the 12 million children in the country, 80 per cent suffer daily from acute humanitarian needs.

“On average, a child under the age of five dies of preventable causes in Yemen every 10 minutes,” Mr Guterres said.

“This means 50 children in Yemen will die during today’s conference, and all those deaths could have been prevented.”

Many of the children who survive “will be affected by stunting and poor health for their entire lives,” he added.

Anthony Lake, head of the UN children’s agency, urged the world to act immediately, warning that “these children cannot wait for an official famine to be declared.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom noted that with two million children out of school, there is a growing risk of recruitment by armed groups, while two-thirds of girls are married off before the age of 18.

“We must act now”, she said.

ATTACKS ON HEALTH FACILITIES

The World Health Organisation says there have been some 325 attacks on health facilities, schools, markets, roads, and other infrastructure since the war escalated two years ago. Fewer than 45 per cent of health facilities are now fully functioning, and the flow of “essential medicines” has fallen by nearly 70 per cent, it said.

DISPLACEMENT

Since 2015, about 3.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes, though nearly 1.3 million have returned to their home regions, according to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration. But Yemen’s conflict has been overshadowed by the war in Syria, which has generated a far larger refugee crisis.

THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

Mr Guterres said donors meeting in Geneva on Tuesday pledged $1.1 billion in aid to Yemen, a little more than half the $2.1 billion sought in this year’s UN appeal. UN officials were examining the pledges to determine how much was really new money.

The United States, which supports the Saudi-led coalition, said it was committing nearly $94 million in additional humanitarian assistance, bringing its total to $526 million since the 2016 fiscal year.

Humanitarian groups say any additional international aid is only a stopgap and have called for a political solution to end the war. The last round of peace talks between the warring parties broke down in August, after which the coalition shut down Sanaa airport, heavily limiting access to the rebel-held capital and much of northern Yemen.

megan.palin@news.com.au