On Wednesday, Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the country will stop supplying weapons and ammunition to the United Arab Emirates, citing “great concern” over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes in Yemen for nearly three years. In 2016, Norway sold nearly $10 million worth of weapons to the UAE. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Britain continue to supply the Saudis with billions of dollars’ worth of weapons. The U.S. also provides logistical military support to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi air campaign has killed more than 10,000 civilians in Yemen, which is the Arab world’s poorest country, and displaced more than 3 million.
In December, Doctors Without Borders said it suspected an outbreak of diphtheria in the country for the first time since 1982, with 28 deaths reported since August. Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross says the number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen has reached 1 million, making it the worst cholera epidemic on record. And the United Nations is warning over 8 million people are a step away from famine. More than 80 percent of Yemenis now lack food, fuel, water and access to healthcare.
Iona Craig talking:
I think it’s really how man-made the humanitarian crisis is, the Saudi coalition’s policy of not just blockading the country and restricting food imports—and Yemen imports 90 percent of its food in peace time—but it’s also the bombing campaign, that I mentioned in that report for The Guardian, that has been used to systematically target Yemenis’ ability to grow their own food or supply food for themselves. So, there is a clear pattern of a strategy to bomb farmland, to target the areas where farmers are trying to grow food, and, again, as well, targeting fishermen, where people have become increasingly reliant on, you know, fish and fishermen’s supplies to feed themselves. And so, in that report, I spoke to fishermen on the Red Sea coast in Hudaydah, the head of the fishermen’s union, and to farmers. And there has also been academic research done on the data of the airstrike campaign since 2015 that does show a pattern of the Saudi coalition apparently targeting Yemen’s food supplies, its own farmers and fishermen, in order to prevent them from being able to provide food for themselves, in addition to this blockade. So this is what is so largely responsible for the humanitarian crisis that we’re seeing now, with more than 8 million people facing famine, with hundreds of thousands of children now starving to death. And this has been a policy of the Saudi coalition, which is, of course, backed by Western nations, including the U.S. And so, they are complicit in that. And it’s mass starvation of 27 million people.
I think everybody in Yemen, even those who hated Ali Abdullah Saleh, were shocked when he died, that it had happened at all, but also the way in which he died. I’m not sure everybody would hold that same voice. There are people, particularly in southern Yemen, who were very pleased to see Ali Abdullah Saleh go.
But I think everybody now—there is mass uncertainty of what happens next. That’s everybody’s question, is: What happens now that Ali Abdullah Saleh is dead? And his political party appears to be crumbling, those who were still loyal to him, as well. And I think, particularly in Sana’a, people, over the last 10 days, are incredibly scared.
Trying to communicate with people there is very difficult. After Saleh’s death, the Houthis cracked down on the internet. It’s not possible to access social media—Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp—without a VPN. And so, people’s ability to communicate with the outside world has been silenced. And even when you do—when you are able to communicate with people, they’re very scared. They don’t want to talk about politics. They don’t want to tell you about what’s going on, because they fear that there will be reprisals and that the Houthis are going to be cracking down on anybody who shows still loyalty to Ali Abdullah Saleh.
And there has been a lot of talk of detentions in Sana’a over the last 10 days, since Saleh died, but it’s unclear how many people have effectively disappeared into the prisons in Sana’a and how bad that crackdown is, because getting information out of Sana’a is so difficult because of the restrictions the Houthis have placed on internet access over the last 10 days. So, yes, people there are incredibly, incredibly scared and, you know, sort of holding their breath, really, of what’s going to happen next in Yemen, after Saleh’s death.
Why is the White House going to be showing this evidence? Why is Saudi Arabia not showing that evidence, or even the Yemeni government showing that evidence? And I think the concern is about the answer to that question. Is this going to be—is this rhetoric and this narrative going to be used as some form of pretext for more U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen to support any ground operations by the Saudi-led coalition?
There have been movements, since Saleh’s death, on the Red Sea coast towards Hudaydah. A grand operation against Hudaydah port had been talked about for more than a year, but under the previous U.S. administration, they had advised the Saudi-led coalition against that. And so, the concern is that this kind of rhetoric coming out of the White House may be used as some form of way to support the coalition in any upcoming ground offensive and to increase the U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen.
And, of course, that then brings the prospect of escalation, because it’s highly likely, if that did happen, that Iran would retaliate. They may not retaliate in Yemen. They could retaliate in Syria or Iran. And that, of course, brings the prospect of an almost proxy conflict then between the U.S. and Iran.
So it’s incredibly dangerous. And I think the timing of it now is also—you know, it’s dangerous for Yemen, in the sense that the aid agencies have warned, for a long time now, about the dangers of pushing militarily on Hudaydah, because they rely so heavily on the port to bring in aid to Yemenis at the moment, but the consequences could be far-reaching, you know, beyond the borders of Yemen and for the rest of the region, if this is going to be now used as some form of narrative for more U.S. involvement in targeting the Houthis in Yemen, who Saudi Arabia, of course, see very much as a proxy for Iran.
It certainly seems to be that the Houthis have increased their capabilities on the weapons side. The Yemeni arsenal didn’t contain ballistic missiles that could reach as far as Riyadh before the war. And all the indications are that they’ve received training and maybe military parts, as well, that have been shipped into or smuggled into Yemen in order for them to be able to modify the ballistic missiles that they did have, in order to fire them into Riyadh and, as they claim, as well, the Houthis have claimed, to fire towards the UAE, as well. this kind of talk, it really points towards escalation, which could be incredibly dangerous for the region as a whole.
I think the problem is now, it’s with the U.S. cozying up more to Saudi Arabia, being very much on side with the Saudi coalition, whilst being more hostile towards Iran, really means that the—getting some kind of dialogue going on the war on Yemen to bring an end to the conflict is less and less likely. And actually, U.S. actions at the moment are pointing towards a sort of never-ending conflict. Trying to find an end to the conflict becomes more difficult, and the U.S. is actually making it more difficult by this kind of relationship, very close relationship, with Saudi Arabia, whilst being much more aggressive in their rhetoric towards Iran.
And that has a direct consequence on the civilian population now, who are literally starving to death in Yemen. And the U.S. policies at the moment and their activities are making that worse for Yemenis on the ground, and will do, if they can’t get to the point of some form of political discussion or a ceasefire to at least bring a halt to hostilities in some way. And so, yes, the U.S. is actually making the situation worse in Yemen rather than better.
the issue with cholera, actually, the numbers were improving, although they’re expected to reach a million by the end of this year, with more than 2,000 people now having died from the disease. The bombing of the infrastructure, of water supplies, has had an impact on that—on hospitals, the blockading of medical supplies, bringing them into the country, the blockading of water purification into the country. The aid agencies have been bringing in supplies for that. That all has an impact on the ability to help the cholera situation in Yemen.
But now you’re seeing outbreak of more disease. We’re hearing in the last few days about diphtheria in Yemen, which hadn’t been recorded for decades in the country. And this is all because less than 50 percent of the country’s medical facilities are now operating. And those that are operating, under massive strain, they can’t get the supplies that they need. And the aid agencies can’t bring in the help that they need to for those kind of situations.
So, yes, it’s not just hunger. It’s disease. And I think that’s not just going to be restricted to cholera now, whilst the hospitals and medical centers in Yemen struggle to cope with, basically, the situation that they’re in because of the conflict, because of the hospitals that have been bombed, because of medical facilities that have been put out of action because of the war. The healthcare system is basically collapsing in Yemen at the moment. And there’s no way to rectify that if aid agencies can’t get help in to them at the moment.
the primary weapon sales are coming—or weapon arms sales are coming from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia. Britain is also involved. Other European countries are also involved. Canada is also involved. I think it’s very lucrative business for the U.S. and the U.K. And particularly in the U.K., as well, it’s not just weapon sales, it’s other investments from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries who are part of the coalition, particularly in the Brexit era, when the British government is going to be looking beyond Europe now for, you know, more investment in the country. So, it’s about maintaining relationships that have a financial interest, ultimately.
And this has gone on despite clear evidence of violations of international humanitarian law that I’ve seen on the ground in Yemen, and that—the evidence has been collected by human rights organizations. And that doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon. There have been ongoing calls, both in the U.S. and the U.K., for suspensions of weapon sales. There was a partial suspension of precision-guided weapons in the U.S. a year ago, but that has since been lifted, and they are now selling precision-guided weapons back to the Saudis again. So, there are no indications that either government, the U.S. or the U.K., is going to change that policy anytime soon.
But it is a point of leverage, and they could use that in order to push for dialogue in this war. But it’s not being used, and, obviously, the consequences of that are devastating for Yemenis.
And this is the really disheartening thing about it, because that’s at the expense of millions of Yemenis who are literally starving to death, that the interests of those people and the lives of those people is being—is being seen as inferior to the economic interests of the U.S. and the financial interests of the Trump administration.
So, yeah, it brings a lot of questions about just the moral compass, really, of societies and our governments, really, the U.S. and the U.K., in this, about the direction that this takes, because we are all now well aware of the humanitarian situation in Yemen right now and how many millions of people are suffering the situation of famine on the ground and the likely numbers of people who are going to starve to death, but yet our governments are still willing to hold very close relationships with Saudi Arabia and, for financial interests, maintain that relationship, at the cost of many hundreds of thousands of lives in Yemen.
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Iona Craig
journalist who was based in Sana’a from 2010 to 2015 as the Yemen correspondent for The Times of London. She was awarded the 2016 Orwell Prize for her reporting on Yemen.
— source democracynow.org