16 million Yemenis without clean water

Some 16 million Yemenis - or two-thirds of the population - have no access to clean water, British charity Oxfam warned Tuesday, raising fears of diseases spreading in the conflict-hit country.
"People are being forced to drink unsafe water as a result of the disintegration of local water systems, bringing the real risk of life-threatening illnesses, such as malaria, cholera, and diarrhoea," it said, reports dpa.
Before the recent escalation in fighting, 13 million people - of an estimated population of 25 million - were without access to clean drinking water.
Saudi-led airstrikes on the Houthi rebels who control much of the country, coupled with fighting on the ground and fuel shortages, have left an additional 3 million people without safe water supplies.
"In the rural areas of Hajjah and Al Hodeidah governorates in western Yemen, 40 per cent of the local clean water supply systems which Oxfam were supporting have now shut down," the charity said.
Aid organizations have warned that fuel shortages have put pumping systems used to provide safe water in much of the country out of use.
Local authorities have also warned that they do not have enough fuel to maintain the pumping and treatment of raw sewage, posing a serious threat to public health, Oxfam said.
The United Nations previously said that a five-day pause to the Saudi-led air campaign had allowed enough fuel to be delivered across the country to ensure safe water supplies for 1.2 million people.
But that truce expired on May 17 and was not renewed, with the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis trading accusations of breaches.
Saudi Arabia and an alliance of mainly Sunni Arab countries launched airstrikes against the Houthis in late March after the mainly Shiite rebels forced President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi out of the country.
Meanwhile, the fate of peace talks which the United Nations said would start in Geneva on Thursday remained unclear.
On Monday, officials in Hadi's government in exile said the talks would be postponed until the Houthis complied with a UN Security Council resolution requiring them to withdraw from the capital Sana'a and other cities.
The UN has yet to make any official announcement about a postponement.