The U.N. agency for children says it has distributed cash to nearly 1.5 million families in war-battered Yemen to help avert the risk of famine.

The emergency payout, part of a $200 million World Bank-funded program, comes in the fourth year of a civil war that has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced more than 3 million and crippled the country's infrastructure.

The U.N. considers Yemen to be the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22.2 million people in need of assistance.

Geert Cappelaere, the regional director of UNICEF, said Monday that the money reached an estimated 9 million people and allowed families to buy food and medicine for their children, many of them malnourished.

It's the second of three planned payments, with the next round set for August.