Daily Times

Without a shadow of doubt Yemen is bleeding but it seems no one cares about it! When Palestine was bombarded by Israel- the media spoke about it. Even, when controversial chemical weapons were used in Syria, the media talked about it but sadly the war in Yemen which is being carried out by Saudi Arabia and its collation from the last four years has hardly any media coverage and support from Muslim ‘Ummah’ (Muslim Brethren).

The Arabian Peninsula seems to have turned a blind eye to Yemen, even though it is the poorest Arab country and the West just wants to sell its weapons, despite the most heinous humanitarian crimes are taking place due to Saudi Arabia and its western allies. The Saudi and American hate towards Yemen is deeply rooted in Kuwait’s crisis in 1990; Yemen’s President opposed the military intervention from non-Arab states.

As a member of the United Nations Security Council for 1990 and 1991, Yemen did not agree with UNSC resolutions concerning Iraq and Kuwait and voted against the ‘use of force’ resolution. The vote outraged the US and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Saudi Arabia expelled 800,000 Yemenis in 1990 and 1991, to punish Yemen for its opposition to the war. Secondly and importantly Yemen is strategically very important for oil producing countries because it sits on the Bab al-Mandab strait, a narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, through which much of the world’s oil shipments pass.

The country is already suffering a famine. There are 2.2 million children in Yemen at risk of acute malnutrition and 462,000 are severely and acutely malnourished. The ongoing famine is affecting approximately 17 million people in Yemen that makes 70 percent of the population of Yemen. “One of the things about what happens in famines is there’s a sudden collapse of which you get no notice,” Low cock, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, told in a UN general assembly meeting in last week while discussing the Yemeni crisis.

“When the collapse happens, it’s too late to do anything. There’s a huge loss of life very, very quickly. So that’s the issue we’re flagging.” He said. UN chief of Humanitarian crisis also explained that the bombing during the war at the port of Hodeidah is one of the biggest reasons of the acute food crisis because transportation of food and goods is not possible any more. Grain grinding mills are shut due to no electricity, aid convoys now have to follow a more circuitous route along a much poorer road with wrecked bridges and craters.

The country is already suffering a famine. There are 2.2 million children in Yemen at risk of acute malnutrition and 462,000 are severely and acutely malnourished. The ongoing famine is affecting approximately 17 million people in Yemen that makes 70 percent of the population of Yemen

Childhood is a time when children should be able to play, learn, grow, develop, be nurtured, and feel safe & protected. But the statistics are sobering and it’s not getting better: one in four children (535 million) in the world live in conflict or disaster zones and are deprived of their childhood simply because of where they live or who they are according to a recent UNICEF report. Yemen is also one of these conflicted zones on of August 9, a US attack killed 40 boys aged from six to eleven who were being taken on a school trip. Eleven adults also died. Local authorities said that 79 people were wounded, 56 of them were children. CNN reported that the weapon used was a 227 kg laser-guided bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the many thousands sold to Saudi Arabia as part of billions of dollars of weapons exports.

Saudi is the most beloved and pampered customer to buy weapons, it is the biggest single customer for both the US and UK arms industries. The US also supports the coalition with refuelling and intelligence. In 2015, the UK exported £ 2.94 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia over a period of 9 months. The Obama administration offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion some say $ 200 billion in weapons in the course of its two four-year terms, more than any previous US administration. After the bombing of a funeral hall in October 2016, that killed 155 people, Barack Obama halted the sale of guided munitions technology to Saudi Arabia, on the grounds that improved precision would not save civilian lives if the Saudi-led coalition were not taking care to avoid hitting non-military targets. The sales were reinstated by the Trump administration’s first secretary of state, Rex Tiller son, in March 2017. According to Independent, Trump has the largest sale of weapons in American history! It could add up to $350 billion over ten years.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, “The war in Yemen is now the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22 million people — three-quarters of the population — in desperate need of aid and protection”. As the conflict enters its fourth year, millions are without access to clean drinking water and the country is at high risk of a cholera epidemic. 8 million people in the country don’t know if they will get a next meal and ‘every ten minutes a child under-five dies for preventable causes. Many are struggling to support their families, child marriage rates have also risen. “Nearly two-thirds of girls are married before the age of 18, and many before they are 15 or younger, hundreds of parents are dead in bomb blasts or air attacks and kids under the age of eleven or twelve are forced to look after their siblings’; they are without any shelter or home or food. Both sides of the conflict used food as a weapon of war, but the crisis is caused primarily by the brutal air, land and sea blockade imposed by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition.

In principle, the coalition says the purpose of the blockade is to stop Iranian weapons from entering Yemen to supply the Houthi rebels who are in control of much of the north, including the capital Sanaa. Here we cannot ignore the sectarian and regional conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, according to an estimate 45 to 52 percent population is Shia and pro Iran and rest of them are Sunni and pro Saudi, so Yemen is not only facing offence from Saudi and allies but is also on the brink of civil war!

Sadly, Yemen is facing atrocities by Saudi Arabia and its allies completely all alone, on the call of ( a sort of Muslim NATO ) Saudi Arabia, 40 Muslim countries showed their willingness to be a part of that larger army. Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan etc, agreed to join the army against Yemen. The newly elected prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, has also assured Saudi Arabia of military support against Yemen. Though United Nations is flagging the situation of Yemen again and again and showing alarming figures of deaths in future mostly kids. But still the Pakistani prime Minister paid his allegiance to the Saudi Prince to help them against Yemen.

The writer is a journalist based in Belgium and is a, writer, teacher, translator, human activist, focusing on human rights, gender equality and peace

Published in Daily Times, November  12^th 2018.