By Antoni Slodkowski

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 21 (Reuters) - The acting chief of the World Food Programme on Monday said the agency was ramping up its response to the escalating crisis in Yemen, where Houthi fighters seized the country's Red Sea coast, displacing tens of thousands of people.

Nearly 700 people have been killed and thousands injured, according to the UN, as the group made their advance. More than 120,000 Yemenis have fled their homes within Yemen, and thousands more by boat across the Red Sea to Africa.

"We are stepping up. We have supported around 60,000 people with hot meals and food commodities and we are building up our pipeline to respond to hundreds of thousands more," WFP Acting Executive Director Carl Skau told Reuters during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The escalation in Yemen comes as more than 18 million people, roughly half the population, face acute food insecurity and some 2.2 million children under age 5 are acutely malnourished, according to the WFP data.

Camps for the displaced are "already overstretched and our operations there are underfunded," Skau said. "People are not eating enough, there is no healthcare, and these are the places where you now see tens of thousands of newly arrived people with nothing, and having had their lives disrupted."

The surge by the Iran-backed group this ‌month extended the wider Middle East conflict to a new theater and further threatened global energy supplies, resulting in a spike in oil prices, upending maritime trade in the region.

"Ninety percent of the food in Yemen is imported. So when ports are not working or when airports are not working, that's having an impact on food security in Yemen," said Skau, who recently visited the country.

Skau also warned that the agency was unable to operate in the Houthi-controlled areas as the group continues to occupy UN offices after it confiscated its assets and detained dozens of UN staff.

"Our offices in the north are occupied by the Houthi de facto authorities, and our assets are still confiscated, so under such circumstances it's very difficult for us to operate," said Skau.

The Swedish diplomat said the organization, the largest UN agency by budget, was severely underfunded and forced to cut back on life-saving aid. He said he would push for more funding at the diplomatic jamboree with nearly 130 heads of state visiting New York this week.

(Reporting by Antoni SlodkowskiEditing by Bill Berkrot)

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