Nearly one million displaced people in Yemen risk losing their shelter, the UN said Tuesday, warning of a dire funding shortfall as the COVID-19 pandemic looms.

Some $89.4 million is urgently needed in the coming weeks to keep life-saving aid programmes running, the UN refugee agency said, warning the shortfall threatens critical aid for nearly one million displaced Yemenis and refugees.

"Yemen is already considered to be the world's largest humanitarian crisis," UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo told a virtual press briefing in Geneva.

"The country is now also facing the overlapping threat of the coronavirus pandemic, and the impact of recent torrential rain and flooding."

More than 100,000 people across Yemen have been affected, she said, according to initial reports on the floods.

The aid being sought has become "urgent", said Mantoo, as the groups it would be directed to are also the "most vulnerable" to COVID-19.

Without it, they would be without the means to find food and shelter.

"For many refugees and displaced families, this is a matter of life and death," Mantoo said.

Yemen recorded its first case of the new coronavirus on April 10.

"After five years of conflict, more than 80 percent of Yemen's total population requires some form of assistance," said Mantoo.

Yemen's war between Iran-backed Huthi rebels and pro-government troops escalated in March 2015, when a Saudi-led military coalition intervened against the rebels who control large parts of Yemen including the capital Sanaa.

Close to four million internally displaced people, returnees, refugees and asylum-seekers are now reliant on regular humanitarian aid to survive, said the UNHCR.

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