SANAA — Many areas of Yemen are close to famine partly because importers are unable to buy new food stocks from abroad as more than $200 million is stuck in banks due to the civil war disruption, trade and aid sources involved say.

Western banks had already cut credit lines for traders shipping food to Yemen, fearing they would not be repaid due to the security chaos and fragile financial system. Now, they are increasingly unwilling to offer letters of credit, which guarantee sellers will be paid on time.

They are reluctant to offer guarantees because the banking system has seized up.

An international commodities trade source involved in the food trade with Yemen, who has knowledge of the country’s financing troubles, said as much as $260 million – held in different foreign currencies in Yemeni banks – cannot be transferred abroad partly because relations with many Western banks had broken down.

An aid official also confirmed the amount of funds frozen was at least $260 million.

This means that traders must withdraw the money in Yemen and then send it abroad, usually by plane, a solution fraught with difficulties at a time of war.

Without imported staples such as wheat and flour, the United Nations says many areas of Yemen are now close to famine as most buffer stocks have been drawn down.

The United Nations has said the economy is close to collapse and many areas are at risk of famine, a word the agency uses sparingly and only when certain criteria have been met.

It said 10 out of Yemen’s 22 governorates were currently in a phase 4, or emergency, situation. If an area reaches phase 5 famine is declared.

“Food imports have been going down, which should translate into lower stocks,” said the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s regional representative, Abdessalam Ould Ahmed.

Ahmed said while it had not reached phase 5 yet, there was nevertheless “significant deterioration”, especially in the city of Taiz in central Yemen.