“This scale-up is an ambitious undertaking for WFP, which will demand massive resources both logistical and financial,” said Herve Verhoosel. “WFP has enough food stocks in country for now but will need US$152 million a month to sustain its scale-up into next year.”

The world’s worst humanitarian crisis spiraled in Yemen after a Saudi-led coalition launched an offensive to support the government against Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in March 2015.

It has killed at least 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organisation.

The latest report comes as Yemeni government representatives and a rebel delegation were holding UN-brokered peace talks in Sweden.

The armed conflict was at the top of a list of the “key drivers of food insecurity”, which has been further exacerbated by a protracted economic crisis in the impoverished Gulf Peninsula country.

Yemen’s finances have been devastated by the conflict, with the World Bank reporting the economy has contracted by around 50 per cent since 2015.

Unemployment is running at over 30 per cent and inflation is projected at around 42 per cent, while the majority of state employees are not paid.

A slide in the value of the riyal also has caused food prices in the famine-threatened country to soar.

“A large proportion of the population, even in more stable areas, cannot access basic food commodities because food prices have jumped by 150 per cent compared to pre-crisis levels,” the statement said.