A Reddit post from user yemenvoice, the Yemen national has raised $12,000 in crypto donations to fight starvation in the Middle Eastern nation.
It has been reported that they claim to have provided 22 families with flour, rice, oil, and beans and hope to reach 30 more in the near future. A Redditor living in Yemen’s capital city of Sana'a claims to be using cryptocurrencies to buy food packages for families unable to access supplies during an ongoing civil war.
yemenvoice said:
“I have tried very hard to help my people by finding any possible way. I have tried to set up online donation campaigns, but unfortunately, all online donation platforms do not support Yemen. So, I thought of using cryptocurrencies as an alternative method, and indeed it was much easier and more effective.”
However, Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, followed by a Saudi Arabian-led coalition of forces responding to a request for assistance from ousted President Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. The country has been subject to a blockade by air, land and sea since March 2015, leading to millions of Yemenis in need of basic necessities.
David Beasley, the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, said that 16 million people in Yemen "are marching towards starvation," including 400,000 children under the age of five, according to a separate report, with food supplies already at critical levels. yemenvoice claims to have been able to “break the siege” and get funds into the country to buy food by using cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Nano (NANO).
The report said that according to blockchain records, yemenvoice’s addresses have received around $600 in BTC, $1 in BCH, and $64 in NANO, but the Redditor said that they have received $12,000 in crypto, $3,000 of which has already been used "to pay medical bills, buy medicines, pay rent and buy food."
Likewise, yemenvoice claimed to have selected people in need and "paying them wherever I found them" though the story and use of the funds could not be verified independently. Many Reddit users expressed their support for the project but questioned how someone could use crypto effectively in an area like Yemen.
Thus, yemenvoice added:
“If I send an amount of Bitcoin, they give me the equivalent in exchange for the dollar, but in the local currency, and so on I buy and distribute these goods. Soon you will see shop owners in Yemen trading in Bitcoin and not converting it to dollars or even to the local currency. Especially with the deterioration of living conditions here and the collapse of the Yemeni riyal.”
Source: Cointelegraph
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