Saudi Arabia to pay $500 million for Yemen aid‏

United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock said Saudi Arabia plans to pay $500 million next week of a pledge it made in February to help fund a humanitarian response in Yemen. Lowcock on Monday told the U.N. Security Council that Saudi Arabia planned to pay on Sept. 25 and that the United Arab Emirates had also recently made a payment of $200 million. In July Lowcock called out Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for only paying a "modest proportion" of the hundreds of millions of dollars they have pledged. In February both countries each promised $750 million. U.N. data showed in July that Saudi Arabia had paid only $121.7 million and the United Arab Emirates about $195 million. At the February pledging event, donors committed to provide $2.6 billion of the $4.2 billion the United Nations was seeking. So far only $1.4 billion of those pledges have been received. "Unless there is more money in the bank, we will not be in a position to re-open vaccination programmes, nutrition centres, cholera prevention work or other activities that we have had in recent weeks to close down. Other programmes targeting millions of people will also remain at grave risk," Lowcock said. Lowcock said he received confirmation from Saudi Arabia on Monday morning of the planned payment after an assault on Saudi oil facilities that cut almost half of the kingdom's production, or 5% of global oil supply. The United States accuses Iran of being behind the attack.

For five years , Yemen has been in a war between pro-government forces backed by Saudi-led Arab coalition and Houthi militias accused of being supported by Iran .