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Thread: 60 Minutes Story on Yemen

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    60 Minutes Story on Yemen

    "We're on the brink of famine. If we don't receive the monies that we need in the next few months, I would say 125,000 little girls and boys will die."...

    When food is used as a weapon
    19 Nov.`17 - How Yemen's civil war has brought 7 million people, many of them children, to the brink of starvation
    This month Saudi Arabia tightened a stranglehold on the neighboring country of Yemen and 7 million people face starvation. The Saudi blockade is an escalation in Yemen's civil war. The United Nations says the war has now become a "man-made catastrophe." You've seen very little of this because the Saudis prevent reporters from reaching the war zone. Recently, we were ordered off a ship headed to Yemen. Days later the Saudis gave us permission to fly there but, after our equipment was loaded and our boarding passes issued, the Saudis closed the airspace so the plane couldn't take off. Even so, we have managed to get pictures out of Yemen to show you what the Saudi government does not want you to see. This will be hard to watch, but 27 million people in Yemen pray you will not turn away.

    Hungry children cry. But there are no tears at the limits of starvation. Wasting bodies cannot afford them. This is the Al Sabeen Hospital in the Yemeni city of Sana'a. Ibtisam is two and a half. She weighs 15 pounds. Haifa is seven. She weighs 11 pounds. The images, and stories from the hospital, were sent to us by people that we hired inside Yemen. One child dies every ten minutes in the country according to the U.N.. David Beasley runs the World Food Programme, the U.N.'s emergency first responder to prevent famine.

    David Beasley: It's just desperation and death. It is as bad as it gets. I don't know if I've ever seen a movie this bad.

    Scott Pelley: We were headed into Yemen with the World Food Programme, the Saudis gave us permission to come, and then when we arrived they wouldn't let us into the country. What do you think they didn't want us to see?

    David Beasley: I don't understand why they won't allow the world to see what's taking place. Because I think if the world sees the tragedy of this human sufferin', number one, the world will step up and provide the support financially for innocent children to eat. But when you get on the ground and see what I see, you see is chaos, is starvation, is hunger, and it's unnecessary conflict strictly man-made. All parties involved in this conflict have their hands guilty, the hands are dirty. All parties.

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    Saudi coalition to open some Yemeni ports for humanitarian aid...

    Saudi coalition to open some Yemeni ports for aid
    Nov. 22, 2017 -- The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen announced Wednesday it would allow some rebel-held ports to accept humanitarian aid.
    The coalition, which supports the Yemeni government, said it would open the Sanaa airport and Hodeidah port. Saudi Arabia closed all airports and seaports in the country last week after a thwarted Houthi ballistic missile attack on Riyadh led to suspicion that Houthis were smuggling arms into Yemen. The coalition reopened some government-controlled ports shortly after the move, but other closures restricted the delivery of aid. Yemen relies on imports for about 80 percent of its food. The World Health Organization and United Nations last week called on Saudi Arabia to lift the blockade. WHO said Yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with more than 20 million people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

    Paolo Cernuschi, the country director for the International Rescue Committee in Yemen, said the organizations could not celebrate what he described as the "partial easing of access restrictions." "Even though tomorrow's reopening of ports to humanitarian traffic will ease the flow of aid, it will still leave the population of Yemen in a worse situation than they were two weeks ago before the blockade started," he said. "Humanitarian aid alone cannot meet the needs of Yemenis who are unjustly bearing the brunt of this war. "Access by commercial shipments of food and fuel must be resumed immediately, otherwise this action will do little to turn Yemen back from the brink of famine and crisis."


    Yemeni children push a wheelbarrow with jerrycans filled with drinking water from a donated water pipe in Sanaa, Yemen, on Saturday. The Saudi-led coalition said it would allow some aid shipments to travel to rebel-held ports.

    Houthi rebels, who represent the country's Zaidi Shiite Muslim minority, have fought the Yemeni government periodically since 2004. The conflict exploded in 2014 and 2015, though when rebels, along with supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, entered the capital of Sanaa and forced President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee to the port city of Aden. A coalition of eight Arab countries -- mostly Sunni Muslims -- took up the fight to restore Hadi to power. The United States, Britain and France also support the coalition. The Hadi government controls much of eastern Yemen as well as the southern coast, including the second-largest city of Aden. Rebels control much of the northwest, including the capital and Hodeidah.

    Though Iran has denied involvement in the conflict, the U.S. military said it intercepted a shipment of weapons from Iran headed to the Houthis. The fighting has led to a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where civilians are facing famine and disease. "At least 14.8 million are without basic healthcare and an outbreak of cholera has resulted in more than 900,000 suspected cases," WHO said earlier this month. "Some 17 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from and 7 million are totally dependent on food assistance. Severe acute malnutrition is threatening the lives of almost 400,000 children."

    The organization said a diphtheria epidemic is spreading through the country with 120 confirmed cases and 14 deaths in the past several weeks. Jamie McGoldrick, U.N. Yemen Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, said northern Yemen has a three-week supply of vaccines, a 20-day supply of fuel and a 10-day supply of gasoline. The British humanitarian charity Oxfam International warned in September that Yemen's cholera outbreak could infect more than 1 million people by the end of the year. It cited WHO statistics indicating more than 745,000 suspected cases and more than 2,000 deaths in the country.

    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...l&utm_medium=9

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    Yemen Worst Place on Earth to Be a Child...

    UNICEF: Yemen Worst Place on Earth to Be a Child
    November 26, 2017 — UNICEF's Middle East director is calling Yemen one of the worst places on Earth to be a child and urging all involved in the fighting to let humanitarian aid keep coming in.
    Geert Cappelaere told reporters in Amman, Jordan, Sunday that UNICEF was able to get nearly 2 million doses of vaccines delivered to Sana'a airport Saturday, but that such success should not be a "one-off." Cappelaere said far more supplies are needed and that ships carrying food, chlorine tables for drinking water, and treatments for diarrhea and cholera are on their way to the port of Hodeida. "More than 11 million Yemeni children are today in acute need of humanitarian assistance. That's almost every single Yemeni boy and girl," Cappelaere said. "To all parties and all those with a heart for children, please take your responsibility now."


    Workers unload an aid shipment from a plane at Sana'a airport, Yemen

    He was talking about the responsibility for all those involved in Yemen to stop fighting and stop what he calls the war on children. "Today we estimate that every 10 minutes, a child in Yemen is dying from preventable diseases," he said.


    The Saudi-led coalition trying to drive out Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from Sana'a promised last week to ease a blockade of the airport and Hodeida. It shut down the facilities almost three weeks ago in response to a Houthi missile attack near the airport in Riyadh. The Saudis intercepted the missile. Saudi Arabia blames the missile launch on Iran. Iran denies arming the Houthis.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/unicef-yem...e/4137238.html

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    Thats just a damn shame, somewhere along the line I hope americans that act like they hate their country realize what they have and how much better it is than much of the world
    LETS GO BRANDON
    F Joe Biden

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    waltky (11-27-2017)

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    Comparison to Saudi/Yemen blockade...

    Patrick Buchanan: The US-Saudi Starvation Blockade
    November 27, 2017 | Our aim is to "starve the whole population — men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound — into submission," said First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill.
    He was speaking of Germany at the outset of the Great War of 1914-1918. Americans denounced as inhumane this starvation blockade that would eventually take the lives of a million German civilians. Yet when we went to war in 1917, a U.S. admiral told British Prime Minister Lloyd George, "You will find that it will take us only two months to become as great criminals as you are." After the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, however, the starvation blockade was not lifted until Germany capitulated to all Allied demands in the Treaty of Versailles.

    As late as March 1919, four months after the Germans laid down their arms, Churchill arose in Parliament to exult, "We are enforcing the blockade with rigor, and Germany is very near starvation." So grave were conditions in Germany that Gen. Sir Herbert Plumer protested to Lloyd George in Paris that morale among his troops on the Rhine was sinking from seeing "hordes of skinny and bloated children pawing over the offal from British cantonments." The starvation blockade was a war crime and a crime against humanity. But the horrors of the Second World War made people forget this milestone on the Western road to barbarism.

    A comparable crime is being committed today against the poorest people in the Arab world — and with the complicity of the United States.

    Saudi Arabia, which attacked and invaded Yemen in 2015 after Houthi rebels dumped over a pro-Saudi regime in Sanaa and overran much of the country, has imposed a land, sea and air blockade, after the Houthis fired a missile at Riyadh this month that was shot down. The Saudis say it was an Iranian missile, fired with the aid of Hezbollah, and an "act of war" against the kingdom. The Houthis admit to firing the missile, but all three deny Iran and Hezbollah had any role. Whatever the facts of the attack, what the Saudis, with U.S. support, are doing today with this total blockade of that impoverished country appears to be both inhumane and indefensible.

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    Aid Begins To Filter Back Into Yemen, As Saudi-Led Blockade Eases
    November 27, 2017 • Badly needed shipments of food and vaccines have arrived at some Yemeni air- and seaports, which have been closed for about three weeks by the Saudis in retaliation for an attempted missile strike.
    Roughly three weeks into a blockade by a Saudi-led coalition, Yemeni ports of entry are beginning to see some desperately needed shipments of food and humanitarian aid. A container ship stocked with 25,000 tons of wheat docked at the Red Sea port of Saleef on Monday — just one day after a ship carrying 5,500 tons of flour arrived at Hodeidah, another port held by the Houthi rebels whom the Saudis have been seeking to dislodge from Yemen.


    A ship carrying food aid docks at the port of the Yemeni coastal city of Hodeidah on Sunday.

    And the "first plane landed in Sanaa [on Saturday morning] with humanitarian aid workers," World Food Programme regional spokeswoman Abeer Etefa told Reuters. Among this weekend's shipments were 1.9 million vaccines, according to UNICEF — a crucial influx for a country ravaged by more than 900,000 suspected cases of cholera. UNICEF says those supplies are enough to vaccinate some 600,000 children. Yet disease isn't the only danger. Earlier this month, Save the Children estimated that Yemen, which has been riven for years by civil war and a Saudi-led airstrike campaign, "would expect to see about 50,000 malnourished children under the age of five die from hunger or disease this year."

    And that staggering number was calculated even before the Saudis implemented the blockade in retaliation for an attempted Houthi missile strike on a Riyadh airport. The Houthis, backed by predominantly Shiite Iran, have been fighting Yemen's internationally recognized government, which has been supported by the Sunni leaders in Saudi Arabia. "With this blockade it's very difficult to get supplies, and it's very difficult to deliver those supplies to the health facilities or the clinics to people in need mainly because also there is no fuel," Rasha Muhrez, Save The Children's director of operations in Yemen, told Here & Now earlier this month. "If this blockade continues, then the humanitarian situation will continue to deteriorate, and unfortunately, we would be unable to save these people in need."

    But the easing of the blockade has appeared to offer reason for hope, however glimmering. Monday's shipment at Saleef alone will help "feed more than 1.8 million people for one month," Etefa said in a tweet announcing the arrival.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...blockade-eases
    Last edited by waltky; 11-28-2017 at 07:45 AM.

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    Dey need drinkable water in Yemen...

    ICRC buys fuel to supply Yemen with clean water
    Nov. 29, 2017 -- The International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday it is buying 750,000 liters of diesel fuel to provide clean water to cities in Yemen affected by a blockade enforced by a Saudi-led coalition.
    Robert Mardini, the regional director for the ICRC, called the move an "exceptional stop-gap measure." "We're buying and supplying 750,000 litres of fuel so as to provide clean water to 1 million people in Hodeidah & Taiz for one month," he tweeted. "ICRC not supposed to do this."

    Some fuel stocks in the area are only available on the black market and their prices have soared, the BBC reported. The lack of fuel has created vast shortages of other essential needs, such as food, water and medicine. "Nothing is getting into Yemen. And time is running out," the ICRC tweeted on Nov. 18.


    Yemenis collect drinking water from a donated water pipe in Sanaa, Yemen, on November 18. On Wednesday, the Red Cross announced it will buy fuel to provide clean water to Yemenis affected by the Saudi-enforced blockade.

    The Saudi-led coalition, which includes several Arab states and receives military and logistical support from the United States, has been fighting the Houthi rebels since 2015. During that time, essential supplies, which were already scarce in the world's poorest country that relies on imports for 90 percent of its needs, became hard to find. And a blockade enforced three weeks ago has worsened the situation.

    On Saturday, aid workers arrived in Yemen for the first time since the beginning of the blockade. "The needs are huge and there is much more to do for #YemenChildren," UNICEF tweeted. Nawal Mazahem, an English teacher, told the BBC earlier this month the blockade has been a "siege on people's livelihoods." "The suffering has been going on for a long time, and now it's worse," she said.

    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...l&utm_medium=5

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    Thumbs up

    Blockade Creates Shortage of Vaccines...

    Diphtheria Cases Soaring in Yemen as Blockade Creates Shortage of Vaccines
    December 03, 2017 — The World Health Organization reports the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen’s sea ports is hampering efforts to contain a diphtheria outbreak that, so far, has caused 197 cases of the disease, including 22 deaths.
    Diphtheria has spread to 13 of Yemen’s 22 governorates, including the capital Sana’a, since the first case was detected less than two weeks ago. World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier, says the Saudi blockade is hindering WHO’s ability to import the vaccines needed to keep the disease in check. “There is still not even one dose of Tetanus-Diphtheria vaccine in the country for children above five years and young adults," said Lindmeier. "Around 8.5 million doses are needed for three rounds of the vaccination campaign.”

    Diphtheria is an infectious bacterial disease. It can cause severe breathing difficulties, suffocating its victims to death. Lindmeier tells VOA diphtheria is a vaccine-preventable disease. “So, what we did is, we had a vaccination campaign for children under five years," said Lindmeier. "That was possible with the material which was available in country. And, 1,000 doses of anti-toxins have reached Sana’a on Monday, just Monday 27th…These things are crucial, these things are important.”

    Following an international outcry, Saudi Arabia has partially lifted the blockade. As a consequence, Lindmeier says a ship carrying 33 tons of medical supplies, including surgical supply kits, infant incubators, and vaccine cold boxes is arriving in Hodeida port. But, because of the long delay and closure of access, he says there is a big backlog of anti-diphtheria vaccines and other supplies stored in Djibouti and elsewhere waiting to get in.

    https://www.voanews.com/a/diphtheria...s/4147175.html
    See also:

    Yemen's Houthis say they shot missile at UAE nuclear site; UAE denies
    Dec. 3, 2017 -- Houthi rebels in Yemen said they fired a missile at nuclear power facility in Abu Dhabi, an incident the United Arab Emirates denied Sunday.
    The Houthi-affiliated al-Masriah TV reported the ballistic missile was launched at the Barakah nuclear reactor under construction, "successfully hitting its target." But the United Arab Emirates' state-run news agency WAM said the Houthi claim was untrue. "UAE possesses an air defense system capable of dealing with any threat of any kind and the project of Barakah reactor is immune," the agency said. The United Arab Emirates is part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting against Houthi militants and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Houthi-Saleh coalition became shaky last week when Saleh encouraged his supporters to take up arms against the Houthis during clashes in the capital of Sanaa. At least 15 people died in the fighting.

    The Houthis and Saleh forces have been fighting against forces loyal to President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi since 2014. The Saudi-led coalition on Sunday said it would welcome talks with Saleh in order to free Yemen of "militias loyal to Iran." The Saudis have accused Iran of supporting the Houthi effort, which Tehran has denied. The U.S. military, though, said it intercepted a shipment of weapons from Iran headed to the Houthis in 2016. Saleh said he would be interested in talks if the Saudis lifted a blockade on Yemeni sea ports and airports, and stopped attacks. "I call upon the brothers in neighboring states and the alliance to stop their aggression, lift the siege, open the airports and allow food aid and the saving of the wounded and we will turn a new page by virtue of our neighborliness," Saleh said in a televised speech.


    Houthi rebels, pictured, and the United Arab Emirates disagree on whether the rebels in Yemen struck a nuclear power plant under construction in Abu Dhabi with a missile.

    The Houthis accused Saleh of "treason." "Do not continue. This act is an act of treason. Shame on them. This is shameful," Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said. Houthi rebels, who represent the country's Zaidi Shiite Muslim minority, fought against the Saleh government periodically from 2004 until his ouster in 2012. With a common enemy in new President Hadi, the Houthis and Saleh's supporters joined forces and the conflict exploded in 2014 and 2015. The rebels forced Hadi to flee the capital to the port city of Aden in February 2015. The rebel alliance formed a joint government in November 2016, the National Salvation Government.

    A coalition of eight Arab countries -- mostly Sunni Muslims -- led by Saudi Arabia took up the fight to restore Hadi to power in March 2015. The United States, Britain and France also support the coalition. The Hadi government controls much of eastern Yemen as well as the southern coast, including the second-largest city of Aden. The fighting has led to a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where civilians are facing famine and disease. A Saudi blockade on rebel-held ports in Yemen earlier this month meant civilians already lacking food and medicine found supplies even more scarce. Saudi Arabia reopened some ports last month, but humanitarian organizations said it wasn't enough.

    The World Health Organization on Saturday renewed its calls for the Saudis to fully lift the blockade on shipments. The group said a shortage of fuel, food and other essentials has caused prices to skyrocket; in some places, the price of water has increased by 600 percent. WHO also said struggling health facilities and compromised sewage networks in six main cities could cause a renewed spike in Yemen's cholera epidemic. This imminent catastrophe is entirely avoidable, but it requires immediate action by the coalition," WHO said. "Together, we call on the coalition to urgently open up all Yemeni Red Sea ports fully and to facilitate the entry and free-flow of humanitarian and vital commercial goods."

    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...l&utm_medium=8

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    Yemen's former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh 'killed'...

    Yemen's former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh 'killed'
    4 Dec.`17 - Reports from Yemen say ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been killed in fighting with his former allies.
    Media controlled by the rebel Houthi movement quoted officials as declaring the "end of the crisis of the treason militia and the killing of its leader". Sources in Mr Saleh's General People's Congress party also confirmed that he was dead, according to Al Arabiya TV. Pictures and video circulated online showed the body of a man resembling Mr Saleh with a severe head wound. Until last week, Mr Saleh's supporters had been fighting alongside the Houthis in a war against Yemen's current president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.


    Ali Abdullah Saleh became an ally of the Houthis after Yemen's civil war began in 2015

    But longstanding political tensions and a dispute over control of the main mosque in the rebel-controlled capital, Sanaa, triggered fierce clashes that have left more than 125 people dead and 238 wounded since Wednesday night. On Saturday, Mr Saleh offered to "turn a new page" with the Saudi-led coalition backing Mr Hadi if it stopped attacking Yemen and ended its crippling blockade.

    The coalition and Mr Hadi's government welcomed the comments. But the Houthis accused Mr Saleh of staging a "coup" against "an alliance he never believed in". More than 8,670 people have been killed and 49,960 injured since the coalition intervened in the civil war in March 2015, according to the UN. The conflict and the blockade have also left 20.7 million people in need of humanitarian aid, created the world's largest food security emergency, and led to a cholera outbreak that is thought to have killed 2,211 people since April.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42225574
    See also

    Ali Abdullah Saleh, Ex-President of Yemen, Is Said to Have Died
    DEC. 4, 2017 — Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former president of Yemen, was killed after his home was blown up in the war-torn capital, Sana, on Monday, according to reports from both sides in the conflict.
    The Interior Ministry, which is controlled by Houthi rebels, reported that Mr. Saleh had been killed. Ali al-Bukhaiti, a Yemeni politician who is well connected with Mr. Saleh’s party, the General People’s Congress, also said the president had died. “The news is 100 percent true,” he said. The precise circumstances of his death remained unclear. Ahmad al-Hawati, a resident of Sana, was told by relatives living near Mr. Saleh’s complex that it had been bombed by rebels, and an official in the General People’s Congress also said the complex, on a busy street, had been bombed. The official declined to be identified by name because he had not been authorized to speak to reporters. The episode followed a rift two days ago with the Houthis, Mr. Saleh’s former allies in the fight against a Saudi-led coalition, which imposed a blockade on Yemen last month after a missile fired by the rebels was intercepted near the Saudi capital.


    Former president Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen at a rally with his supporters in Sana, Yemen, in August.

    In a televised speech on Saturday, Mr. Saleh blamed the “idiocy” of the Shiite Houthis for years of war in Yemen and said he was ready to turn a “new page” in his relationship with the Saudi-led coalition if its forces ceased attacking Yemen. Mr. Saleh stepped down in 2011, in the popular uprising known as the Arab Spring, after many Yemenis turned against him. Until then, he had been known as a shrewd and dogged survivor of Yemen’s tangled, tribal politics. He once compared his years in office to “dancing on the heads of snakes.” In the latest fighting, he was initially allied with the Houthis, themselves loosely aligned with Iran, but the relationship became fissured. Sunni-led Arab states embroiled in the conflict suspect the Shiite theocracy in Tehran of using the Houthis as part of their broader struggle against Saudi Arabia for regional dominance.

    In his televised address on Saturday, Mr. Saleh declared: “I call upon the brothers in neighboring states and the alliance to stop their aggression, lift the siege, open the airports and allow food aid and the saving of the wounded, and we will turn a new page by virtue of our neighborliness.” The Saudi-led coalition seemed to welcome his remarks. A statement on the Saudi-owned news outlet Al Hadath said the coalition was “confident of the will of the leaders and sons” of Mr. Saleh’s political party to effect a rapprochement. The weekend maneuvering came as Mr. Saleh’s supporters fought Houthi adversaries for a fourth day in Sana. At least 80 people were reported killed as the fighting threatened to escalate.


    Houthi fighters during clashes with forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sana on Monday.

    On Sunday, Houthi rebels said they had fired a cruise missile at a $20 billion nuclear facility under construction in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, which is allied with Saudi Arabia. But a state-run news agency in the United Arab Emirates denied the assertion. The fighting in Yemen has been accompanied by signs of famine and outbreaks of cholera as humanitarian conditions have sharply deteriorated.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/w...n-houthis.html

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    Yemen needs humanitarian aid...

    US Urges Renewed Food and Humanitarian Aid Deliveries for Yemen
    December 18, 2017 - The United States is urging the complete return of food and humanitarian aid deliveries to Yemen including construction of new cranes to unload ships at the port of Hudaydah.
    Saudi Arabia imposed a blockade on Yemeni ports last month after Houthi rebels fired a suspected Iranian-made missile near the Riyadh airport. The blockade is preventing aid from getting to those who are in desperate need, including fuel needed to run generators to power hospitals and water treatment plants. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said no humanitarian or commercial shipments have reached Hudaydah since late November. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and U.S. Agency for International Development chief Mark Green met last week with U.N. and other relief officials on the situation in Yemen.


    Sullivan said a political solution is the only away to achieve long-term stability in Yemen. Green said the United States is "ready to respond to this humanitarian catastrophe" with the Trump administration announcing another $130 million in emergency food aid to Yemen. The Saudis say they have sent large amounts of aid to Yemen, but not to areas controlled by the Houthis. They have accused the rebels of stealing and selling the food and medicine.


    People gather to collect food rations at a food distribution center in Sana'a, Yemen



    The Iranian-backed Houthis seized the Yemeni capital of Sana'a in 2014, driving the internationally-recognized government into exile to Saudi Arabia. It has since returned and set up shop in the southern port city of Aden. Saudi-led airstrikes aimed at pushing the Houthis out of Sana'a and northern Yemen have killed thousands of civilians and obliterated entire neighborhoods. The fighting comes on top of a cholera epidemic in Yemen and the threat of famine.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/us-urges-r...-/4169169.html

    See also:


    The Dictator Whose Hunger For Power Helped Tear Yemen Apart Is Dead
    December 4, 2017 Yemen’s former authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was killed by political rivals on Monday outside the capital, Sanaa. Saleh’s unexpected death at age 75 puts an abrupt end to his decades-long run as the country’s wily power broker ― a legacy that has left Yemen in crisis and ruin.
    Yemen After Saleh’s Rule" data-reactid="40">Yemen After Saleh’s Rule

    Saleh’s rule over Yemen lasted for 33 years until he was forced to resign in 2012 amid a popular uprising. He never fully accepted losing the presidency, however, and in recent years became a central player in the country’s devastating civil war. As Yemen has sunk deeper into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises since its civil war began in 2014, Saleh’s unrelenting dealmaking and desire for power never stopped. But Saleh, who famously described ruling Yemen as “dancing on the heads of snakes,” saw his longstanding ability to maneuver and manipulate the country’s fractious politics ultimately fail this week.



    Ali Abdullah Saleh addresses supporters at a rally in August.



    Just days before his death, he had shifted his allegiances and signaled he would turn against the Houthi rebels he had aligned with and instead link arms with Saudi Arabia. The decision sparked days of fighting in Sanaa between the Houthis and Saleh loyalists until Houthi rebels gained the upper hand. The Houthis, members of an Iran-supported rebel movement, claim they ambushed Saleh’s motorcade as he attempted to flee the capital. Now the civil war he stoked plunges into further uncertainty, and Yemenis face more suffering.


    Saleh’s Legacy Of Ruin

    Even before Yemen fell into civil war and became the target of Saudi airstrikes, Saleh’s rule left the country in a fragile state. As the country suffered from food shortages, falling oil production and economic mismanagement, Saleh amassed a fortune through corrupt dealings. Yemen has long been one of the region’s most impoverished countries ― the year before Saleh was ousted, the annual income for the average Yemeni was around $1,000 U.S. dollars. As the country suffered from food shortages, falling oil production and economic mismanagement, Saleh amassed a fortune through corrupt dealings. Saleh was also notorious for playing different political and sectarian groups in the country, using government funds to buy allegiances from local leaders and political groups. He also launched crackdowns on those who sought to oppose his rule, including a deadly campaign in 2004 on the Houthi rebels who killed their leader Husayn al-Houthi. When the wave of political uprisings that began across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 hit Yemen, Saleh’s supporters attempted to violently suppress the pro-democracy protests. About 2,000 people died in the crisis before Saleh accepted a deal in 2012 that saw him step down and make way for a new government and elections.




    Last edited by waltky; 12-18-2017 at 10:06 PM.

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    How Global Politics Created Yemen's Humanitarian Disaster...

    How Global Politics Made Yemen's Humanitarian Disaster
    March 22, 2018 • The war in Yemen is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Reporters were recently given access to a part of the war zone, a conflict that has become a bloody battleground.
    The war in Yemen is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Largely started as an internal fight between rebels and their government, it's now a much more bloody battleground in the regional rivalry between Iran — which backs the rebels — and Saudi Arabia, which backs the government. An NPR team spent weeks working to get a picture of the war, which has often taken place beyond public view. NPR traveled with the Saudi military into Yemen, interviewed people in rebel-controlled zones, and then traveled to Djibouti, in East Africa, a destination for Yemeni refugees. What emerged were the stories of people like Ola Ali Salim.

    Salim is a citizen of Yemen, now a refugee. She had one daughter with her husband, who supported the family by driving a motorcycle, carrying one or two passengers at a time on the back of the seat. Last year her husband was driving around the capital city, Sana'a, when it erupted in violence. A former president was trying to switch sides in the civil war and was killed. Sana'a was also being bombed by a Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi rebels. Amid explosions and gunfire, Salim simply stopped hearing from her spouse. "He never called. We don't know any news of him, so the only explanation is that he's dead," she told NPR. "They didn't find the body." It was only her latest loss. In a separate incident, three of her cousins were killed in what she believed to be an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition – the only side in the battle with an air force.

    In December, she packed a few belongings and traveled to the coast, hiding her grief beneath the black head covering, or niqab, which Yemeni women are expected to wear. She brought along her 12-year-old daughter. They boarded a small boat that bobbed across the Gulf of Aden in the middle of the night. They arrived in the African country of Djibouti, where NPR interviewed her. Djibouti can have something of the feel of the movie Casablanca — a former French African colony, which serves as a way station or last refuge for the desperate. But there was nothing romantic about Salim's flight. She lives in a United Nations refugee camp in a tent with a floor of desert sand. She was within sight of the water, and nearly within sight of the country where she lost her husband. The war that displaced Salim has a U.S. connection, which was on exhibit in Washington this week. Saudi Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman visited the White House and got a warm welcome from President Trump, who showed pictures of U.S. military hardware sold to Saudi Arabia.

    A globalized conflict

    The U.S. has provided targeting information, equipment and aircraft refueling to the Saudi air campaign, which has been widely criticized for being indiscriminate and killing civilians in places like hospitals, funerals and homes. Several thousand civilians have been killed since 2015, when the Saudis got into the war. On Tuesday, the day the prince met Trump, the U.S. Senate defeated a resolution 55-44 that would have limited what the U.S. can do to support the Saudi war effort. The issue will likely come up again. While both sides – the Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition — have killed, detained or displaced civilians, much of the international focus has been on how the Saudi-led campaign escalated the violence. The Saudis, along with a coalition that includes the United Arab Emirates, argue that they are countering a dangerous rebel faction backed by Iran. They note that Houthis have fired missiles – allegedly Iranian-made – into Saudi territory.

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