A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition lies on a bed in Yemen's northern Hajjah Province on Monday. The war in Yemen, the Arabian peninsula's poorest country, has mutated into what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Photo: AFP

The coronavirus pandemic is worsening the humanitarian situation in the world's deadliest conflicts and threatens to unleash economic devastation that will intensify violence, United Nations (UN) diplomats and experts warn.

COVID-19 is hampering aid programs, diverting the attention and resources of major powers battling the deadly virus at home, and cutting remittances to already fragile, war-weary economies, they say.

"There's a very high level of concern that its economic impact is going to spark more disorder, more conflict," said New York-based UN expert Richard Gowan.

"We're still only really in the opening act of quite a long drama," he told AFP.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres's plea for a global cease-fire back in March has gone largely unheeded, with fighting continuing to rage in hot spots such as Yemen, Libya and Syria.

Lockdowns are restricting the movements of envoys, peacekeeping troops and nongovernmental agencies, hindering mediation efforts and impeding the distribution of desperately needed aid to increasingly vulnerable civilians.

In Yemen - where tens of thousands of civilians have died since 2015 in what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis - fighting is intensifying, according to diplomats who say the country is in free fall.

"Famine is again on the horizon. Conflict is again escalating. The economy is again in tatters. Humanitarian agencies are again nearly broke. And then the new problems - COVID-19 is spreading out of control," UN relief chief Mark Lowcock said last week.

The British diplomat told the UN Security Council that the novel coronavirus crisis had slashed remittances, which has long been a lifeline for the country, by as much as 70 percent.

He cited a recent survey that found that about half of Yemeni families have lost at least 50 percent of their income since April.

"Help Yemen now or watch the country fall into the abyss," he implored.

Lowcock also reported depressing economic news from Syria, whose economy has been devastated by almost a decade of civil war.

He said lockdown measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 was one factor in the Syrian economy expecting to contract by more than 7 percent in 2020.

AFP