Despite a promising reduction in new cholera cases throughout July, in August around 150,000 suspected cases were recorded, bringing the total since April 27 to nearly 600,000. Largely as a result of the cholera crisis, a revised version of the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan for 2017 calls for an additional $271 million, and by the end of the month the new total of $2.3 billion had only been 41 percent funded. Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) based in Aden floated the riyal and instructed Yemeni banks to discontinue using the official exchange rate of 250 YER/USD. Tensions in Sana’a between the Houthis and Ali Abdullah Saleh boiled over into a gunfight in Sana’a on August 26, but a meeting between representatives of either side brought a degree of stability back to Sana’a. Amid a Security Council briefing in mid-August, the Houthis maintained their demand that Sana’a airport be re-opened to commercial flights, and Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdulmalik Al-Mekhlafi told the Council that the Yemeni government would allow flights to resume if the airport is placed under UN supervision.
