The heads of three UN agencies have issued a joint statement on Thursday calling on Saudi Arabia to end its protracted blockade of the Yemeni coast, warning that “untold thousands” will die soon if it is not lifted.
The Saudi-led blockade has been in place to varying degrees since early 2015, causing widespread shortages and many deaths. Lack of medicine led to what is believed to be the worst cholera epidemic in history, killing thousands. Northern Yemen has since run out of most cancer medicine, and insulin, with warnings from doctors that the death tolls for people with certain illnesses would quickly escalate to total extermination.
Even the “untold thousands” warning is just a near-term estimation, with northern Yemen down to its last few weeks of food, and chronic malnutrition across the region could very quickly lead to a famine threatening to kill millions.
Saudi Arabia has made no indication any easing is coming in the north, saying they were open to reopening “loyal” ports in the far south, but also bombing north Yemen’s lone airport to ensure no one tries to deliver medicine by plane.
The Saudi (American) blockade of Yemen is clearly a violation of Geneva Convention IV which the USA signed in 1955 and is therefore the law of the land. We continue to operate as a rogue nation, along with Israel and Saudi Arabia, in these f-ing wars in the Middle East. When will an American president be brought to trial in the Hague for war crimes? Never, sadly.
The genocide of Yemen is policy. Saudis want that place cleared out.
True, it’s only the “losers” in any conflict that are ever brought to justice in The Hague.
Remember when the Donald was so moved by the children that were killed in the alleged chemical attack in Syria? This dwarfs that and yet we continue to enable and support these murderous thugs.
Ah yes, but that was “our enemy” that allegedly killed them.
Can’t somebody prod Germany into launching an airlift of aid? They opened their borders to a million refugees specifically because Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen. The Saudis were copying Hitler by starting a war on a second front and the Germans, on witnessing it, hit back with a fantastic gesture of peace. So it can only be political dysfunction that makes an airlift look difficult; a mere speed bump of frustration standing in the way. How does somebody prod a country? How do we prod Germany? Even that can’t be difficult, they prodded themselves into opening their borders, which was a massive manoeuvre.
I wonder about the pious Christians all over the USA and their “reps” in the Congress who work so hard to save unborn children yet find the murder (yes it is) of 130 children a day in the poorest Arab nation on earth by our allies the Saudis supplied by us and the UK with weapons and ships to blocade the country.