benajessopwrites

[benajessopwrites]

Silently The Worst Humanitarian Crisis On Earth

When people discuss humanitarian crises, they tend to think of The Holocaust, The Rwandan genocide, Syria during and after the war, Haiti after the earthquake, Japan after the tsunami but the world's worst and most desperate humanitarian crisis is happening right now, right this second.

Yemen, is currently facing the worst humanitarian crisis on earth - Which is now coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic and a Cholera epidemic. There is no hiding away from the fact that Yemen is the most destitute place of earth, with raging poverty and ongoing civil war, the future for all Yemeni's looks bleak.

Before I get into the history of how and why this conflict has been so disastrous and why no mainstream coverage is being shown to you, I'll give you some headline figures to highlight just how bad this situation is; just before the pandemic took hold, 80% of Yemeni's required humanitarian assistance, 24.1 million people. Since early 2015, 3.65 million people have been internally displaced, most for over a year. Around 8.5 million Yemeni's go hungry every single day and 2 million children under the age of 5 suffer from acute malnutrition. Prior to the pandemic, 2 million children were out of school and now with the closures an additional 5 million children now have no access to education. The civil war has already taken the lives of over 100,000 people. The UN have stated that the number of deaths could reach 233,000 by the end of 2020 with 60% being children under the age of 5. Over 10 million people are facing food insecurity and are on the brink of famine. Over 13 million people face dying of starvation.

We need to understand the political landscape of Yemen, before we can properly understand how this was has become so devastating. Yemen was run by President Saleh for twenty years before his removal from government and eventual assassination. To the north of Yemen, there is an Islamic political and armed movement called 'Ansar Allah' but is colloquially known as the Houthi's. They fought against the government corruption, and directly against President Saleh for decades prior to the Yemen revolution and civil war. To the south of Yemen, since 2007 there has been a political movement and paramilitary organisation who demand secession of South Yemen as its own state called the 'Southern Separatist Movement'.

In July 2011, the Arab Spring took place which involved large scale anti-government protests from around the world against political corruption and low living standards. Disillusioned by the state of affairs in Yemen, many normal Yemeni's including the Sunni Muslim population silently, or actively supported the Houthi's. After years of street protests and escalating tensions within the country, one of the biggest players in this conflict wades into the picture. Saudi Arabia. They are by far the most powerful and influential country in the G.C.C (Gulf Cooperation Council) and they had negotiations with President Saleh and eventually forced him out of government - this now gave the G.C.C a golden opportunity to right the wrongs committed on Yemeni's over the years, but their choice for the next President of Yemen after the revolution was none other than Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. It became quickly apparent that the G.C.C were quite blatantly putting the same elites back into power once the revolution had occured.

By 2014, the factions I'd mentioned previously (The Houthi's and The Southern Separatist Movement) had begun to lose patience with what was occurring in their political landscape. Despite the fact that the Houthi's had fought against ex President Saleh for decades previously, once their patience had worn thin with now President Hadi, and with a drive to take more territory and run Yemen how they saw fit, the Houthi's contacted Saleh and bought him into their side. Saleh saw this as a way to claw back control. Now with a large population of disillusioned Yemeni's and Saleh's military contacts, The Houthi's began their 'takeover' of Yemen and successfully took the country's capital Sanaa by the end of 2014. By January 2015, the government had collapsed and President Hadi was under Houthi house arrest. As the Houthi's, along with Saleh continued to push South, they were met with resistance from the Southern Separatist Movement and this is where the civil war began. President Hadi had managed to flee to Saudi Arabia in March of 2015 just as the Houthi's reached the southern coast.

Now, believe it or not, this is where this war becomes complicated. Saudi Arabia created a coalition of countries, that all had the same three ideal outcomes for their intervention; to return President Hadi to power, they wanted to protect their own southern border, and most importantly they wanted to stop the perceived growing influence of Iran in the region.

The Saudi-led coalition was a campaign of relentless airstrikes with up to 19,000 separate attacks in four years. Saudi claim that they are purely targeting the 'enemy' but human rights groups on the ground see a very different picture. Dozens of hospitals and schools have been bombed, killing thousands upon thousands of Yemeni civilians. Included in the Saudi-led coalition, was the use of aid as a weapon. They created an air, sea and land blockade around Yemen, making it almost impossible for supplies to get in, or out of the country. The Houthi's are also blamed for blocking, destroying or taking aid for themselves. Of a country with a population of 29 million, 24 million would now require humanitarian aid (for perspective, that's almost the entire population of Australia)

The fighting continued, and still continues today but when the war reached 2017 the agreement between the Houthi's and Saleh broke down after fighting the Saudi-led coalition for three years after Saleh was seen on television breaking ranks and saying he wanted to talk with the coalition to find some sort of common ground. Just two days later, the Houthi's killed Saleh.

The Houthi's still continue to control Yemen's capital Sanaa and continue to have an upper hand in the war, but Saudi Arabia believe this is because they are backed militarily by Iran, despite public support from Iran, they deny any military assistance to the Houthi's.

So, when you hear that the war in Yemen is known as a proxy war, this is what they mean - despite all of the Yemeni's real and genuine protests about low quality of life and corruption in politics, what has really transpired is a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. They both support different sides in the civil war, meaning they get to use Yemen as their war playground without damaging their own land.

And as to why you don't see this on UK or US mainstream news channels is scarily obvious, but I'll lay it out for you here too.

The UK, the US and France offer an almost unlimited supply of weapons and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition. In 2018 alone, Saudi-Arabia spent $70 billion on weapons alone, and the US are by far the biggest contributor with about 70% of the market, the UK come in second with around 10% of the market, although we do offer unlimited logistical support to our 'friends' in Saudi Arabia. In the study of 27 attacks in Yemen, 25 involved the use of US weapons, whilst 5 involved the use of UK weapons. A bomb dropped on a school bus, killing forty children in August 2018 was US made.

Despite the obvious and unequivocal evidence that our weapons are causing mass casualties to civilians in Yemen we are still pushing forward to try and sell our most sophisticated and expensive weaponry to Saudi Arabia. France continue to push to regain market share with Saudi Arabia - Desperate to sell their arms to kill innocent children, just like the UK and the US.

So don't think you're not being shown this because Brexit, or Coronavirus is more important - it's because there is blood on Britains hands in this conflict and as we continue to bury our heads in the sand, and continue to sell more weapons, we openly and unapologetically ignore the worlds worst humanitarian crisis as innocent children, women and men starve to death whilst no-one comes to save them.

https://www.unicef.org.uk/donate/yemen/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIo6WljayQ6gIVhu7tCh0ltQX-EAAYAiAAEgJxP_D_BwE

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/how-you-can-help/emergencies/yemen-crisis