Millions
of Yemenis are starving as Saudi Arabia continues to bomb the
country, while the people of Gaza lack electricity and medical
supplies due to a 10-year Israeli blockade. Both conflicts and the
crises they have unleashed are tied to the U.S.’ arms industry’s
unending pursuit of profit.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
2 - Famine and disease devastating Yemen
Since 2015, Yemen has been in and out of the news
following the beginning of a Saudi-led war against the popular Houthi
political movement, which wrested power from former Yemeni President
Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had been installed by the U.S. and the
Saudis.
While many in the media suggest that the Houthis are
allied with Iran and that the conflict is, therefore, a proxy war,
Iran’s minimal involvement and the Saudi’s repeated targeting of
civilian infrastructure and public gatherings suggest that this is a
war against the Yemeni people, one quickly approaching genocide. More
than 10,000 civilians have died in the conflict so far and 3 million
have been displaced.
The crisis in Yemen, which the International Rescue
Committee has called the “largest humanitarian crisis of our time,”
is not due only to Saudi-led military action against the embattled
country. The Saudis and their coalition have blockaded Yemeni ports,
preventing the entry of much-needed food, medicine, fuel and
humanitarian aid.
As a result, 7 million Yemenis are facing starvation,
many of them children. In addition, a lack of infrastructure, fuel
and medicine has made it difficult to purify water, leading to a
massive cholera outbreak that is now present in all regions of Yemen.
The World Health Organization estimates that the disease is spreading
at an astonishing rate of 5,000 new cases a day.
UN aid chief Stephen O’Brien told the UN Security
Council this past Tuesday that “This cholera scandal is entirely
man-made by the conflicting parties and those beyond Yemen’s
borders who are leading, supplying, fighting and perpetuating the
fear and the fighting.”
Last May, more than 20 top international NGOs and aid
organizations jointly called on the United States to recognize and
help to end the crisis in Yemen. However, their calls for aid have
done little to change the actual situation in the country.
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