Al-Qaeda in Yemen has announced its leader, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, has been killed in a U.S. bombing, likely a CIA drone strike. Al-Wuhayshi is a former associate of Osama bin Laden. He became head of AQAP in 2009. Meanwhile, a delegation of Houthi rebels has arrived in Geneva for the second day of U.N.-backed peace talks. It’s been nearly three months since Saudi Arabia launched its offensive against the Houthis in Yemen. On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for a two-week humanitarian ceasefire to coincide with the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
The United Nations recently said 20 million people, 78 percent of the population, need urgent humanitarian aid in Yemen. That’s an increase of four million from just three months ago.
Sharif Abdel Kouddous talking:
Yemen is in a dire situation. Yemenis are being strangled by the blockade that’s being imposed by Saudi Arabia, an air, sea and land blockade, that is really causing a very grave humanitarian crisis, and its effects are seen everywhere on the ground. You can’t drive in Sana’a without seeing cars lined up waiting for gas. They’re lined three deep and stretch for miles. They can’t even see the beginning of the gas station. They wait sometimes three days for gas. We were at one of these lines the other day. A man had waited 26 hours just to get 60 liters at the pump. People push their cars forward. They sleep and eat in their cars. And sometimes tempers flare as people wait this long. And people have been—have killed each other over fuel.
The fuel-powered pumps, that pump water for sanitation and cleaning, are mostly inoperable, so water is hard to come by. This is a very parched country to begin with. The poorest, of course, have to wait in line for water. You see them lining up with—they’re allowed five dairy cans per family to collect water, and that’s for cooking, washing, cleaning and drinking, as well.
There’s no—there’s been hardly any electricity in Sana’a for the past three months, so at night the city really goes into blackness. There’s a rise in—when you walk around Sana’a, you can hear the rattle of generators. That’s the only way people really have any electricity. There’s people now selling solar panels on the streets; they’re becoming increasingly popular for those who can afford it.
The trash has not been picked up in weeks, and you see rubbish piling up on the streets and sometimes being burned, and the stench wafts into the air.
Prices have gone up of basic food items and staple items. There’s no economic life. The private sector has almost completely gone down. You find ex-bankers driving taxis, day laborers waiting for hours on end on the corner and getting no work whatsoever. They have to send their families back home to their home villages, where they live off of charity.
Hospitals have been severely affected, especially by the fuel crisis. They rely on fuel to power generators for electricity. The Health Ministry says over 60 health institutions have been attacked. And people are relying very heavily on international aid.
So this is, you know, the humanitarian crisis that it’s facing, and this is without even talking about the daily bombing that happens from the Saudi-led coalition in Sana’a and in other cities, in Aden and Taiz especially, vicious street battles between forces, the Houthis, the rebel group that has taken over large—control of large parts of Yemen, and forces loyal to the ex-president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. So, it really is a very grave situation here in Yemen.
the bombing is almost always worse at night. You hear the jets fly over, the screech of missiles, the booms of the bombs falling down, and very quickly followed by the dull thuds of anti-aircraft fire that the Houthis fire back into the air, very rarely hitting anything, if ever at all.
Just a couple of days ago, at around 2:00 a.m. on Saturday night, four missiles rained down on an area called Beit Meyad, which is in central Sana’a, and hit a street where the al-Amari family was living, and five of them were killed. Two of them were children, four of them siblings. There was fire everywhere. They were trying to run outside of the building, and an explosion blew a gate into four of them and killed them instantly. An aunt of the victims that I spoke to, Boshra, said that they buried pieces of them. And that strike also killed five members of another family, three of them children. So this missile strike killed 10 people, five of them children, and their only crime was that they lived on a street where Ali Abdullah Saleh’s brother and nephews lived.
And we’ve seen this increasing trend. Activists and people on the ground here increasingly speak of a trend where Saudi forces are moving from targeting security installations and weapons depots to targeting the homes of their opponents, so not where there’s any weapons or anything, but they’re bombing the homes of their opponents. And you find people are moving away from these areas. And so, this is causing a very heavy civilian toll, civilian casualty toll. I mean, the bombings before also caused a very, very heavy toll.
And speaking to the aunt of the victims that I was telling you about, she was telling her story, and it really is one of civilians caught in this crossfire. In addition to losing five family members in this bombing, she has an 80-year-old aunt who was killed after—as a result of shelling by forces loyal to the Houthis. She was wounded. She couldn’t get to a hospital for one month because of the street fighting, and she succumbed to her injuries. She has another relative in Aden, in the south, who’s mentally ill. He was walking in the street and was shot by a sniper. And another relative of hers, just last week here in the capital, was kidnapped by the Houthis.
So, she doesn’t know where to take her kids to protect them. She’s tried sending them to villages, but they’ve also come under attack. She’s trying to leave Sana’a in any way that she can. But with the borders closed and very few outbound flights, she feels trapped. And so, this is the kind of situation that Yemenis are facing every day.
almost everyone blames Saudi Arabia for what is happening, for the bombing and, almost equally, for the siege, for the blockade that is happening.
Having said that, there is—there is a lot of anger, as well, against the Houthis, who have taken over Sana’a in September and have moved south, taking over much of the country. They’ve been accused of many violations. Human rights activists and lawyers that I speak with say this is the worst era yet for human rights in Yemen that they have seen. Houthi forces have arrested journalists, doctors, lawyers, activists. In one of the worst cases, they kidnapped two journalists in late May and detained them in a building that they knew would be targeted. And the very next day, the Saudis bombed that building and killed both journalists. They’ve turned houses—the house of the exiled president, Abdu Rabbu Hadi, and Ali Mohsen have both been turned into detention centers. Rights activists and lawyers talk about how there’s no clear structure for the Houthis. It’s mainly—one lawyer told me it’s a bunch of gangs together. So when someone gets arrested, you don’t know who to talk to to get them out. There’s no rule of law whatsoever.
And almost one of the biggest complaints that people have is from the anti-aircraft fire. So hear this daily in Sana’a. If a plane passes overhead, a warplane, or even if it doesn’t, you just hear this dull thud of anti-aircraft fire all over the city. And these munitions have caused heavy, heavy civilian casualties. Amnesty International put out a report last month that said it was the leading cause of casualties in Yemen—in Sana’a, at least. We went to the Goumhouri hospital, which is the second biggest hospital in Yemen. The director there says he gets between three and five patients every day who are wounded by these munitions.
So, again, it’s really a case of being caught trapped between two sides, by these external forces, which are raining bombs down, and forces on the ground, which are causing—committing human rights abuses and causing injuries, as well.
It’s been very, very difficult, including, you know, the Saudis have really blocked a lot of journalists from accessing Yemen, so including having—using this blockade to block media access. We have to remember this is almost three months now that this war has gone on, and there’s been hardly any international correspondents no the ground. And that is not for a lack of trying. They have tried to get in on aid boats. They’ve tried to come in on the U.N. And they’ve tried to come in on regular commercial flights that happen once a day. And they’ve been blocked, and they’ve been blocked. The Saudis control the access. And so, there’s been some very brave journalists, like Iona Craig, who’s been in Aden, which is probably the worst-hit place in Yemen, really a catastrophe, and people are—there are reports of people dying of starvation there, and there’s hardly any media coverage. So I think, you know, that we were allowed on this one Yemenia flight—that’s the Yemen airlines—in, but there really has to be more pressure to allow journalists in.
And just to give you a sense of how much control the Saudis have over the airspace, Yemenis who are flying into Yemen from the outside, the planes—where before there was a direct flight from Cairo to Sana’a, it now stops in Saudi Arabia. And so, the plane stops there. All the bags are taken off; they’re checked. Saudi Arabian security officials come onto the plane. They check the passports. And when I was there, one Yemeni with me was humiliated that this was happening, that he had to go through Saudi Arabia to get to his country. So they really are controlling access to the country, both for Yemenis, for the media and for—more importantly, for all the humanitarian aid and the fuel. And the siege really must be lifted, is what many Yemenis are calling for.
I think most of them are surprised to see someone coming, you know, to interview them who’s not Yemeni. I mean, there’s been very intrepid and brave Yemeni journalists who have done amazing work over these past three months, but to see foreigners, I think, has been rare. And they’ve been very welcoming, very open to tell their stories. And, you know, the first day I arrived here was the bombing of the Old City, which is a very picturesque cultural—protected cultural heritage site. And a bomb fell there at around 2:00 in the morning, killing five people. And one of the—the doctor, his name’s Dr. Salah Abdelgadir [phon.]. He was under the ground, and he—under the rubble, called his mother, told them where they were. By the time they dug him out, he was already dead. And the people around were telling their stories, saying, “Why is Egypt [inaudible] U.S. participating in this? This is a crime that’s happening.” So, they’re very willing to tell their stories, and so we need to listen to them.
— source democracynow.org