While Syria takes centre stage in world news, not everyone is aware of the crisis in Yemen. The UN has reported that Yemen is currently the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. A country that is on the brink of starvation and is faced with a grim future.
A civil war between the government backing coalition forces, a southern separatist group; but they aren’t the only players, large portions of the country are under the control of terror cells Al-Qaeda and IS.
But the real punch that sent the country into free fall… a blockade.
In 2015, coalition forces between the US-backed Saudis and the Yemeni Government set up an air and naval blockade, stifling of food and medicine coming into the country. For a country that would import approx 90% of its food and medicine, this was the start of a living nightmare.
Yemen was now a nation under siege and divided from within. In December 2017 the ban was partially lifted, but it was too little too late.
Currently, about two-thirds of the country is considered to be pre-famine.
2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview for Yemen report, reflects
- 14.3 million people are classified as being in acute need,
- of which 3.2 million requiring treatment for acute malnutrition;
- including two million children under-five,
- and more than one million pregnant and lactating women.
More than 8 out of 10 need humanitarian aid as the WHO reports outbreaks of
- Cholera
- Dengue fever
- Drug-resistant Typhoid
Since January 2019 alone, health officials in Yemen have reported over 200,000 new cases of Cholera. As of October 2018, since 2016 there had been 1.2 million cases of Typhoid and are currently still facing an ongoing outbreak of Dengue Fever.
The numbers, don’t lie. Yemen is the current Hell on Earth.
The world cannot continue to stand idly by, because while the civil war is between two different Yemeni perspectives, it is the US and Saudi forces that played a significant role in this mass starvation — touching both the Obama administration as well as the current Trump administration. So let’s make no mistake that the US can be considered to be complicit in this mass genocide.
How is the world still silent? How are we still silent?
Never sleeping mind 