AFP UK

A Chinese booster rocket made an uncontrolled return to Earth on Saturday, leading US officials to chide Beijing for not sharing information about the potentially hazardous object’s descent.

US Space Command “can confirm the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Long March 5B (CZ-5B) re-entered over the Indian Ocean at approx 10:45 am MDT on 7/30,” the US military unit said on Twitter.

“We refer you to the #PRC for further details on the reentry’s technical aspects such as potential debris dispersal+ impact location,” it said.

In a statement posted to its official WeChat profile, the China Manned Space Agency later gave coordinates for an impact area in the Sulu Sea, about 35 miles (57 kilometers) off the east coast of the Philippines’ Palawan Island.

“Most of its devices were ablated and destroyed during re-entry,” the agency said of the booster rocket, which was used last Sunday to launch the second of three modules China needed to complete its new Tiangong space station.

Malaysia’s space agency said it detected rocket debris burning up on re-entry before falling in the Sulu Sea northeast of the island of Borneo.

“The debris of the rocket caught fire while entering the Earth’s airspace and the movement of the burning debris also crossed Malaysian airspace and could be detected in several areas including crossing the airspace around the state of Sarawak,” it said.

– NASA criticism –

NASA administrator Bill Nelson criticized Beijing on Twitter, saying the failure to share details of the rocket’s descent was irresponsible and risky.

“All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices, and do their part to share this type of information in advance,” Nelson wrote, “to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles, like the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property.”

He added: “Doing so is critical to the responsible use of space and to ensure the safety of people here on Earth”.

The Tiangong space station is one of the crown jewels of Beijing’s ambitious space program, which has landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon, and made China only the third nation to put humans in orbit.

The new module, propelled by the Long March 5B, successfully docked with Tiangong’s core module on Monday and the three astronauts who had been living in the main compartment since June successfully entered the new lab.

When China launched its first Tiangong module in April 2021, there was a similar frenzy around the possibility of damage caused by an unpredictable booster reentry.

Objects generate immense amounts of heat and friction when they enter the atmosphere, which can cause them to burn up and disintegrate. But larger ones such as the Long March-5B may not be destroyed entirely.

In 2020, debris from another Chinese rocket fell on villages in the Ivory Coast, causing structural damage but no injuries or deaths.

China has poured billions of dollars into space flight and exploration as it seeks to build a program that reflects its stature as a rising global power.

Little snow cover and glaciers melting at an alarming rate amid Europe’s sweltering heatwaves have put some of the most classic Alpine hiking routes off-limits.

Usually at the height of summer, tourists flock to the Alps and seek out well-trodden paths up to some of Europe’s most iconic peaks. 

But with warmer temperatures speeding up glacier melt and thawing permafrost — which scientists say are driven by climate change — routes that are usually safe this time of year now face hazards like falling rocks released from the ice.

“Currently in the Alps, there are warnings for around a dozen peaks, including emblematic ones like Matterhorn and Mount Blanc,” Pierre Mathey, head of the Swiss mountain guide association, told AFP.

This is happening far earlier in the season than normal, he said.

“Usually we see such closures in August, but now they have started at the end of June and are continuing in July.”

– ‘Postpone’ –

Alpine guides who usually lead thousands of hikers up towards Europe’s highest peak announced earlier this week that they would suspend ascents on the most classic routes up Mont Blanc, which straddles France, Italy and Switzerland.

The Guide Alpine Italiane said on its Facebook page that the “particularly delicate conditions” caused by the temperature spike made it necessary to “postpone the climbs”.

Mountain guides have also refrained — reportedly for the first time in a century — from offering tours up the classic route to the Jungfrau peak in Switzerland.

And they have advised against tours along routes on both the Italian and Swiss sides of the towering pyramid-shaped Matterhorn peak.

Ezio Marlier, president of the Valle D’Aosta guides association, said having to steer clear of routes most coveted by tourists was a blow after the Covid slowdowns.

“It is not easy… after two almost empty seasons to decide to halt work,” he told AFP.

He stressed that the Italian Alpine region had shut only two and that there were many other breathtaking and safe routes to take.

But he lamented that many people simply cancelled their trip when they heard their preferred route was off-limits.

“There are plenty of other things to do, but usually when people want Mont Blanc, they want Mont Blanc.”

– Dangerous glaciers –

Climbing on some of the thousands of glaciers dotting Europe’s largest mountain range is also proving trickier. 

“The glaciers are in a state that they are usually in at the end of the summer or even later,” said Andreas Linsbauer, a glaciologist at Zurich University.

“It is sure that we will break the record for negative melts,” he told AFP.

He said a combination of factors were contributing to a “really extreme” summer, starting with exceptionally little snowfall last winter, meaning there was less to protect the glaciers.

Sand also blew up from the Sahara early in the year, darkening the snow, which makes it melt faster.

And then the first heatwave hit Europe in May, with subsequent ones following in June and July, pushing up temperatures even at high altitudes.

The rapid melting can make glaciers more dangerous, as seen with the sudden collapse of Italy’s until then seemingly harmless Marmolada glacier earlier this month, which saw 11 people killed as ice and rock hurtled down the mountain.

While scientists have yet to draw clear conclusions on what caused the disaster, one theory is that meltwater may have reached the point where the glacier was frozen to the rock, loosening its grip.

– ‘Invisible threat’ –

Mylene Jacquemart, a glacier and mountain hazard researcher at Zurich’s ETH university, told AFP there were many unknowns about the catastrophe.

“But the general theme is definitely that more meltwater… makes things complicated and potentially more dangerous.”

Mathey, who said warmer temperatures had put mountain guides on high alert, also voiced concern that meltwater filtering under a glacier posed an “additional and invisible threat”.

But despite the challenges, he voiced confidence that guides would find solutions, seeking out alternative routes to keep showing off Alpine splendours.

“Resilience is really in the mountain guides’ DNA,” as is adaptability, he said.

“Humans have to adapt to nature and to the mountains, not the other way around.”

Devastating flooding in Kentucky has killed 25 people and the toll is expected to rise, the southern US state’s governor said Saturday, as rescuers and residents continued a harrowing search for survivors.

Torrential rain earlier this week caused unprecedented flash flooding in 13 counties in eastern Kentucky.

Many roads and bridges in that mountainous region — an area high in poverty due to the declining coal industry — have been damaged or destroyed. With cell phone service seriously disrupted, finding survivors has been difficult.

“I’m worried we are going to be finding bodies for weeks to come. Keep praying,” Governor Andy Beshear said in a midday news briefing, shortly after tweeting that the death toll had risen to 25 from 16 a day earlier.

The Democratic governor confirmed that “we are still in the search and rescue phase,” saying, “We will get through this together.”

Beshear said an earlier report that six children were among the dead was inaccurate; two of them had turned out to be adults.

The four children, US media reported, were lost in a heart-rending drama. Members of a family, clinging to a tree after a fast-rising stream had engulfed their mobile home, saw their children torn from their grip, one after another, by powerfully surging waters.

Beshear said national guard units from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia had made more than 650 air rescues since the flooding began Wednesday evening, while state police and other state personnel had registered some 750 water rescues.

He said the search was “tremendously stressful and difficult,” with mudslides and flooded roads blocking travel.

Seventeen-year-old Chloe Adams was home alone in Whitesburg when she awoke to the sound of water rushing into her grandfather’s house, where she lives.

“There was water as far as I could see,” she told CNN. “I had a panic attack.”

Realizing she needed to swim to safety, she put her dog, Sandy, in a plastic tub. They made it only to the roof of a nearby shed, barely above the roaring waters.

She and Sandy sat there, shivering, for five hours until a cousin arrived in a kayak to rescue them.

– More rain ahead –

Some areas in eastern Kentucky had reported receiving more than eight inches (20 centimeters) of rain in a 24-hour period.

In Whitesburg, the water level of the North Fork of the Kentucky River rose to a staggering 20 feet within hours, well above its previous record of 14.7 feet.

The flooding turned many roads into rivers, and some houses in low-lying areas were almost completely submerged, with just their rooftops visible.

Scenes on social media showed houses ripped from their moorings and deposited amid masses of debris along riverbanks or even atop a bridge.

The weather offered a respite on Saturday, but more rain was expected the following day, with one to two additional inches expected. The National Weather Service has issued flood watches or warnings for most of the area through Sunday.

Beshear told CNN on Saturday that the impending rain posed a challenge, and “while we don’t think it’ll be historic rain, it’ll be hard.”

Once waters begin to recede, he said, further devastation — and death — would likely emerge.

He said during the briefing that 15 emergency shelters had been opened in schools, churches and state parks, though at least one had been “overwhelmed.”

Some 18,000 homes remained without power, Beshear said, and thousands were without safe water supplies. 

The governor noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent 18 tractor-trailers of water so far. Other federal workers were arriving to process claims.

President Joe Biden has issued a disaster declaration for the area, allowing federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

The flooding is the latest in a series of extreme weather events that scientists say are an unmistakable sign of climate change.

Nearly 60 people were killed in western Kentucky by a tornado in December 2021 — a disaster that Beshear said offered lessons for current efforts on the other end of the state.

“We learned a lot of lessons in western Kentucky on those devastating tornados about seven months ago, so we are providing as much support as we can and we are moving fast from all over the state to help out,” he said on CNN.

In his briefing, Beshear expressed compassion for hard-hit residents.

“We can’t imagine the grief you’re going through right now,” he said.

A Chinese booster rocket made an uncontrolled return to Earth on Saturday, US Defense Department officials said, as they chided Beijing for not sharing information on the potentially hazardous object’s descent.

US Space Command “can confirm the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Long March 5B (CZ-5B) re-entered over the Indian Ocean at approx 10:45 am MDT on 7/30,” the US military unit said on Twitter, referring to China’s official name.

“We refer you to the #PRC for further details on the reentry’s technical aspects such as potential debris dispersal+ impact location,” it said.

The Long March 5B rocket was used last Sunday to launch an uncrewed spacecraft, named Wentian, carrying the second of three modules China needed to complete its new Tiangong space station.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson criticized Beijing on Twitter Saturday, saying that the failure to share the details of the rocket’s descent was irresponsible and risky.

“All spacefaring nations should follow established best practices, and do their part to share this type of information in advance,” Nelson wrote, “to allow reliable predictions of potential debris impact risk, especially for heavy-lift vehicles, like the Long March 5B, which carry a significant risk of loss of life and property.”

He added: “Doing so is critical to the responsible use of space and to ensure the safety of people here on Earth”.

The Tiangong space station is one of the crown jewels of Beijing’s ambitious space program, which has landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon, and made China only the third nation to put humans in orbit.

The new module, propelled by the Long March 5B, successfully docked with Tiangong’s core module on Monday and the three astronauts who had been living in the main compartment since June successfully entered the new lab.

China has poured billions of dollars into space flight and exploration as it seeks to build a program that reflects its stature as a rising global power.

Devastating flooding in Kentucky has killed 25 people and the toll is expected to rise, the southern US state’s governor said Saturday as rescuers and residents continued a harrowing search for survivors.

Torrential rain earlier this week caused unprecedented flash flooding in 13 counties in eastern Kentucky.

Many roads and bridges in that mountainous region — an area hard hit by grinding poverty as the coal industry declines — have been damaged or destroyed, and with cell phone service disrupted, finding survivors is difficult.

“I’m worried we are going to be finding bodies for weeks to come,” Governor Andy Beshear said in a midday news briefing, shortly after tweeting that the death toll had risen to 25.

The Democratic governor confirmed that “we are still in the search and rescue phase,” saying, “We will get through this together.”

Beshear said an earlier report that six children were among the dead was inaccurate; two of them had turned out to be adults.

The children, US media reported, were lost in a heart-rending way. Members of a family, clinging to a tree after a fast-rising stream had engulfed their mobile home, saw their children torn from their grip, one after another, by powerfully surging waters.

Beshear said national guard units from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia had made more than 650 air rescues since the flooding began Wednesday evening, while state police and other state personnel had registered some 750 water rescues.

He said the search was “tremendously stressful and difficult” for rescue teams.

Some areas in eastern Kentucky had reported receiving more than eight inches (20 centimeters) of rain in a 24-hour period.

The water level of the North Fork of the Kentucky River at Whitesburg rose to a staggering 20 feet within hours, well above its previous record of 14.7 feet.

– More rain ahead –

The flooding turned many roads into rivers, and some houses in low-lying areas were almost completely submerged, with just their rooftops visible.

Scenes on social media showed houses ripped from their moorings and deposited amid masses of debris along turbid waterways or even atop a bridge.

The weather offered a respite on Saturday, but more rain was expected the following day, with one to two additional inches expected.

Beshear told CNN on Saturday that the impending rain posed a challenge, and “while we don’t think it’ll be historic rain, it’ll be hard.”

He said during the briefing that 15 emergency shelters had been opened in schools, churches and state parks, though at least one had been “overwhelmed.”

Some 18,000 homes remained without power, Beshear said, and thousands were without safe water supplies. 

The governor said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent 18 tractor-trailers of water so far. Other federal workers were arriving to process claims.

President Joe Biden has issued a disaster declaration for the Kentucky flooding, allowing federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

The eastern Kentucky flooding is the latest in a series of extreme weather events that scientists say are an unmistakable sign of climate change.

Nearly 60 people were killed in western Kentucky by a tornado in December 2021 — a disaster that Beshear said offered lessons for current efforts on the other end of the state.

“We learned a lot of lessons in western Kentucky on those devastating tornados about seven months ago, so we are providing as much support as we can and we are moving fast from all over the state to help out,” he said on CNN.

In his briefing, Beshear expressed compassion for hard-hit residents.

“We can’t imagine the grief you’re going through right now,” he said.

At least 80 people have been killed and 30 others are missing in floods that have wreaked havoc across Iran for more than a week, state media reported Saturday.

Since the start of the Iranian month of Mordad on July 23, “59 people died and 30 are still missing in the incidents caused by recent floods,” Yaghoub Soleimani, secretary-general of the Red Crescent Society, was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

That is in addition to flash floods caused by heavy rains in the normally dry southern province of Fars that left at least 22 people dead just before the start of Mordad.

Many of those victims were spending the day by a riverside.

Soleimani noted that 60 cities, 140 towns and more than 500 villages across the country of around 83 million people have been affected by the inundations.

Tehran province is the hardest-hit with 35 deaths. Nearby Mazandaran province has the highest number of missing people at 20, a list published by the Red Crescent showed.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a letter published on his website Saturday, expressed condolences to the families and called on authorities to take necessary measures to repair the damage.

President Ebrahim Raisi visited flood-ravaged areas in Firouzkouh region east of the capital, his office said.

Severe damage occurred there primarily because of a mountain landslide late Thursday which claimed 14 lives, according to state media.

Videos and pictures posted by Iranian media and on social media showed houses and cars surrounded by grey mud, and people trying to recover their belongings.

Initial estimates point to more than 60 trillion rials (about $200 million) in damages to the agricultural sector, Agriculture Minister Javad Sadatinejad said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

Iran’s meteorological centre on Saturday warned of more rains in the southern and northern provinces in the coming days.

Scientists say climate change amplifies extreme weather, including droughts as well as the potential for the increased intensity of rain storms.

Like other regional countries, Iran has endured repeated droughts over the past decade, but also regular floods, a phenomenon made worse when torrential rain falls on sun-baked earth.

In 2019, heavy rains in Iran’s south left at least 76 people dead and caused damage estimated at more than $2 billion.

Devastating flooding in Kentucky killed 25 people and the toll is expected to rise, the southern US state’s governor said Saturday as rescuers continued their search for survivors.

Torrential rain earlier this week caused unprecedented flash flooding in eastern Kentucky, a mountainous region already hard hit by grinding poverty as the coal industry that was the heart of its economy declines.

“We’ve got some tough news to share out of Eastern Kentucky today, where we are still in the search and rescue phase. Our death toll has risen to 25 lost, and that number is likely to increase,” tweeted Governor Andy Beshear.

“To everyone in Eastern Kentucky, we are going to be there for you today and in the weeks, months and years ahead. We will get through this together,” he added.

Beshear previously said hundreds of people had been rescued by boat since the flooding began Wednesday evening, while National Guard helicopters carried out dozens of aerial rescues.

But “there are still so many people unaccounted for, and in this area, it’s going to be a hard task to get a firm number,” he told CNN on Saturday.

Some areas in eastern Kentucky had reported receiving more than eight inches (20 centimeters) of rain in a 24-hour period.

The water level of the North Fork of the Kentucky River at Whitesburg rose to a staggering 20 feet within hours, well above its previous record of 14.7 feet.

– More rain ahead –

The flooding turned many roads into rivers, and some houses in low-lying areas were almost completely submerged, with just their rooftops visible.

The weather offered a respite on Saturday, but more rain was expected the following day.

“As a cold front drags south, the area will remain mainly dry through today. The dry weather is expected to come to an end Sunday afternoon as a boundary lifts north back into the region,” the National Weather Service’s Jackson, Kentucky office tweeted.

Beshear said on CNN that the impending rain posed a challenge, and “while we don’t think it’ll be historic rain, it’ll be hard.”

The eastern Kentucky flooding is the latest in a series of extreme weather events that scientists say are an unmistakable sign of climate change.

Nearly 60 people were killed in western Kentucky by a tornado in December 2021 — a disaster that Beshear said offered lessons for current efforts on the other end of the state.

“We learned a lot of lessons in western Kentucky on those devastating tornados about seven months ago, so we are providing as much support as we can and we are moving fast from all over the state to help out,” he said.

President Joe Biden has issued a disaster declaration for the Kentucky flooding, allowing federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

Devastating flooding in Kentucky killed 25 people and the toll is expected to rise, the southern US state’s governor said Saturday as rescuers continued their search for survivors.

Torrential rain earlier this week caused unprecedented flash flooding in eastern Kentucky, a region hard-hit by poverty.

“We’ve got some tough news to share out of Eastern Kentucky today, where we are still in the search and rescue phase. Our death toll has risen to 25 lost, and that number is likely to increase,” tweeted Governor Andy Beshear, who had previously put the death toll at 16.

“To everyone in Eastern Kentucky, we are going to be there for you today and in the weeks, months and years ahead. We will get through this together,” he added.

Beshear previously said hundreds of people had been rescued by boat since the flooding began Wednesday evening, while National Guard helicopters carried out dozens of aerial rescues.

Some areas reported receiving more than eight inches (20 centimeters) of rain in a 24-hour period.

The water level of the North Fork of the Kentucky River at Whitesburg rose to a staggering 20 feet within hours, well above its previous record of 14.7 feet.

The flooding turned many roads into rivers, and some houses in low-lying areas were almost completely submerged, with just their rooftops visible.

The weather offered a respite on Saturday, but more rain was expected the following day.

“As a cold front drags south, the area will remain mainly dry through today. The dry weather is expected to come to an end Sunday afternoon as a boundary lifts north back into the region,” the National Weather Service’s Jackson, Kentucky office tweeted.

The eastern Kentucky flooding is the latest in a series of extreme weather events that scientists say are an unmistakable sign of climate change.

Nearly 60 people were killed in western Kentucky by a tornado in December 2021.

President Joe Biden has issued a disaster declaration for the Kentucky flooding, allowing federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts.

Spain on Saturday reported its second monkeypox-related death, bringing to three the number of fatalities linked to the current outbreak outside of Africa.

Spain and Brazil both announced what they believed to be their first deaths related to the virus on Friday.

It is however unclear if monkeypox actually caused any of the three fatalities, with Spanish authorities still carrying out autopsies and Brazilian authorities saying its deceased patient suffered from other serious conditions.

More than 18,000 cases have been detected throughout the world outside of Africa since the beginning of May, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

Spain is one of the world’s worst-hit countries, with 4,298 people there infected with the virus, according to the Spanish health ministry.

“Among the 3,750 (monkeypox) patients… 120 have been hospitalised and two have died,” it said in a report, without specifying the date of the second death.

It said the victims were “two young men”, and that studies were under way to gather more “epidemiologic information” on both cases.

Brazil said a man with monkeypox died on Thursday in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the southeastern Minas Gerais state.

He “was receiving hospital treatment for other serious conditions”, the state health ministry said in a statement.

“It is important to underline that he had serious co-morbidities, so as not to spread panic in the population. The death rate is very low” for monkeypox, said Minas Gerais health secretary Fabio Baccheretti, who added that the patient was undergoing cancer treatment.

Brazil’s health ministry has recorded close to 1,000 monkeypox cases, mostly in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states, which are also in the country’s southeast.

The WHO’s European office said on Saturday that more monkeypox-related deaths can be expected.

“With the continued spread of monkeypox in Europe, we will expect to see more deaths,” Catherine Smallwood, Senior Emergency Officer at WHO Europe, said in a statement.

The goal needs to be “interrupting transmission quickly in Europe and stopping this outbreak”, she said.

– ‘Global health emergency’ –

Early signs of the disease include a high fever, swollen lymph glands and a chickenpox-like rash.

But Smallwood stressed that in most cases the disease heals itself without the need for treatment.

“The usual reasons patients might require hospital care include help in managing pain, secondary infections, and in a small number of cases the need to manage life-threatening complications such as encephalitis,” she explained.

The WHO last Saturday declared the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency.

The disease has been detected in 78 countries, with 70 percent of cases found in Europe and 25 percent in the Americas, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

As cases surge globally, the WHO on Wednesday called on the group currently most affected by the virus — men who have sex with men — to limit their sexual partners.

Ghebreyesus told reporters that the best way to protect against infection was “to reduce the risk of exposure”.

“For men who have sex with men, this includes, for the moment, reducing your number of sexual partners, reconsidering sex with new partners, and exchanging contact details with any new partners to enable follow-up if needed,” he said.

The disease usually heals by itself after two to three weeks, sometimes taking a month.

A smallpox vaccine from Danish drug maker Bavarian Nordic, marketed under the name Jynneos in the United States and Imvanex in Europe, has also been found to protect against monkeypox.

burs-ah/imm

For Yemeni beekeeper Mohammed Saif, honey production used to be a lucrative business but years of war and climate change have taken the buzz out of the family hives.

The business, handed down from father to son, “is slowly disappearing”, Saif told AFP. “The bees are being hit by strange phenomenons. Is it due to climate change or the effects of war? We really don’t know.”

Yemen, one of the world’s most impoverished countries, has been gripped by a deadly conflict since 2014, pitting the Iran-backed Huthis against government forces supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in fighting or through illness and malnutrition over the past eight years, and the country’s infrastructure has been devastated.

But a fragile UN-brokered truce has held since April, bringing some respite to the country and its war-weary population.

In the southwestern region of Taez, Saif recently took stock of his hives in a rugged valley surrounded by mountains.

Before the war, Saif said, the family managed 300 hives, now only 80 are left.

Experts consider Yemeni honey some of the best in the world, including the prized Royal Sidr known for its therapeutic properties.

The United Nations says honey plays a “vital role” in Yemen’s economy, with 100,000 households dependent on it for their livelihoods.

– Bee ecosystems battered – 

But “enormous losses have been inflicted on the industry since the outbreak of the conflict”, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a report in June.

“Armed conflict and climate change are threatening the continuity of a 3,000-year-old practice,” the ICRC said.

“Successive waves of displacement to flee violence, the impact of weapon contamination on production areas, and the growing impact of climate change are pushing thousands of beekeepers into precarity, significantly reducing production.”

Saif knows it all too well.

“Last year in our village a missile struck a beekeeper’s hives. He lost everything,” he said.

“The war has had a very bad impact on us. The fighters have targeted many zones where bees are found,” he added.

The ICRC’s Bashir Omar said the conflict had limited the ability of beekeepers to freely roam the land whenever flowers were in bloom to collect the honey.

Landmines and active front lines are among the challenges they face.

“To make matters worse, Yemen, like many conflict-affected countries, is disproportionately affected by climate change,” the ICRC report noted.

“Temperature rises in recent years, combined with severe alterations caused to the environment, are disturbing the bees’ ecosystem which is impacting the pollination process,” it said.

“With water tables falling and increased desertification, areas previously engaged in agricultural activities and beekeeping no longer sustain these livelihoods.”

The ICRC is providing financial support and training this year to beekeepers, after a similar initiative in 2021 that helped nearly 4,000 of them.

Nabil al-Hakim, who sells Yemen’s celebrated yellow nectar in Taez shops, also recalled the golden days before the conflict ravaged his country.

“Before the war we could make a good living by selling honey… but honey has become rare and customers can no longer afford it,” he said.

“Before, I used to sell up to 25 five-litre jars a month. Now I can’t even sell one.”