Yemen’s Humanitarian Crisis Could Be the Worst in 50 Years

By Daniel Larrison

The head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) describes the appalling conditions in Yemen:

People in war-torn Yemen face a “near-end-of-the-world” situation, the UN’s chief of humanitarian affairs told the island, warning that the country could become the worst humanitarian disaster in half a century.

The main causes of the disaster that swept through Yemen have not changed. As in the spring of 2015, the Saudi-led war and blockade continues to destroy Yemen and starve its civilian population of commodities. Conditions are much worse than a year ago, and will continue to deteriorate if there are no immediate and radical changes in allowing commercial imports of food and medicine. For tens of thousands of Yemenis, it is already too late, but millions are still protected from deaths that can be avoided by hunger and disease.

The Coalition bombing campaign has undermined infrastructure, systematically targeted and distributes food production and distribution, repeatedly hit populated areas with blatant disregard for civilian life, and often hit medical facilities struggling to cope with the spread of preventable diseases, exacerbated by the effects. The siege of the coalition. More than eight million people are on the edge of famine, and more than twenty million people need some humanitarian assistance. The humanitarian crisis in Yemen was the worst in the world in years, but there was no international response to meet the needs of more than 20 million people. This has been in full view of the rest of the world for almost three years, but governments that can do more about it are the ones most responsible for causing it,

In addition to falling into a terrible war, the civilian population in Yemen was unfortunate because they remained mostly invisible in most parts of the world and their plight was ignored by the powerful states responsible for its establishment. At times, governments responsible for the disaster threw a few crumbs on starving people and then hired publicity to boast of their generosity. The Saudis have done this recently through a public relations campaign to make it seem as if they are helping the Yemeni people rather than killing them slowly and deliberately. No amount of rotation can change the fact that the coalition refuses to do what is necessary to alleviate the immense suffering of millions of Yemenis:

But the plan rejects calls by the United Nations to lift the blockade of the port of Hodeidah, a vital lifeline for civilians in the north controlled by Ansar Allah: it proposes to reduce the total flow of goods to the city and to escalate imports to areas controlled by coalition forces. .

The Saudis and their allies do not care to allow basic food and medicines to reach people who need them most. Indeed, the goal of their blockade along the way is to inflict as much economic pain as possible on parts of the country that are not occupied by their forces. That has not changed, and even a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen will bring more and more lives. Throughout this, the United States and other Western governments have provided unlimited support for the war coalition’s efforts. So far, our government continues to help them destroy and starve Yemen. If the humanitarian crisis in Yemen becomes the worst in half a century, it is because coalition governments and their Western sponsors have made it so.