In 2018 the UK announced £170m in response to the humanitarian crisis - named as the world’s worse - for the current financial year. This brings total UK support to Yemen to over £570m since 2015.

The UN is trying to salvage a ceasefire – or truce - in the Yemeni port of Hodeidah that it hopes could lead to a wider peace across the war-torn country. An agreement on this was reached in Stockholm last month between the UN and donor governments.

The new funding will support the UN’s Civilian Coordination Office in Yemen to support the planning and management of the country’s main three ports, demining and establishing a new civilian protection police. 

The office will be co-funded by Germany, the UK Foreign Office said in a statement.

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Up to 20 million Yemenis lack reliable access to food and over 400,000 children under the age of 5 suffer severe acute malnutrition.

“This is a man-made humanitarian catastrophe and it will have man-made solutions.”

He added the funding was “an instrumental part” of the UN’s efforts in Yemen.

The announcement comes after the UN Security Council adopted a UK-drafted resolution last week, which established a special political mission to support implementation of the ceasefire agreement reached in Stockholm.

The resolutions extends the role of the UN monitoring role for a further six months and increases the staff at the ports.

The UK funding will also provide armoured vehicles to UN teams.

The civil war in Yemen is largely a dispute between Houthi rebels that seized the capital, Sana’a, in 2015 and the UN-backed government of Adb Rabbu Mansour Hadi.