Red Crescent Stealing Humanitarian Aid, MSF Blocked from Marran
Military violating truce agreements still. Yemen Times
SA’ADA, Oct.25 — Tribal sources from the Sa’ada governorate have said that the state of people, particularly those who are loyal to Houthis, is worsening due to the advent of winter and the continuous siege imposed by security authorities and tribes supporting the government in the area.
“A military checkpoint in Sa’ada governorate’s Al-Malahidh area prevented a medical unit belonging to medical humanitarian aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from entering to Marran, Haidan and Saqain areas to offer medical aid to the affected citizens,” according to a statement issued by Houthis media center last Tuesday.
The statement said, “The Al-Malahidh checkpoints, in addition to the Al-Majram military site in the mountainous area of Marran, have recently witnessed military reinforcements”. It accused security apparatuses of practicing violations since the agreement to end the fifth war in Sa’ada.
According to the statement, new military sites have been set up in the areas bordering Marran from the Al-Malahidh area and confirmed that arrests had taken place in Sana’a and Mareb during the last two days.
In a phone call with the Yemen Times, Ghadah Hatim, representative of MSF in Yemen confirmed that there had been a misunderstanding between the organization and the Sa’ada health office as the latter asked the organization to postpone its visit to Marran, Malahidh and Saqain. “Our car was heading to Marran Hospital carrying a female physician, a pharmacist and a translator as well as the driver; our organization had been offering aid there since December 2007, but had to stop in May 2008 due to the war in the area,” said Hatim, adding, “But due to a misunderstanding between the health office and us, our car couldn’t reach its destination.”
Hatim said: “The organization is saddened by the poor health situation in those areas which lack all kinds of health care. For humanitarian reasons, we aim to offer healthcare to residents of these areas, provide them with free medication and conduct check-ups for malaria which has spread in Al-Malahidh and the nearby areas.”
She added that MSF hoped that the Sa’ada Health Office would hasten to agree to give MSF personnel the required authorization to proceed with their work in these areas, based on the agreement between the organization and Ministry of Public Health in late in 2007.
From his side, Hanboosh, vice head of Sa’ada Heath Office, told the Yemen Times by telephone: “We did not grant the French organization [MSF] any authorization to enter Marran. Marran hospital is still in the hands of the Houthis and is not under the control of the health office. We will not allow any organization to reach these areas, unless the Houthis hand the hospital over to us as the concerned official authority, and they [MSF] will have to wait until the situation gets better in those areas.”
Shiekh Saleh Habrah, representative of the Houthis told the Yemen Times: “Offering medical services to citizens is an entirely humanitarian act, and we refuse the politicization of humanitarian issues. Our regions are still in a state of tension as the government has not shown commitment to previous agreements. The government has neither released detainees of the Sa’ada war, nor put a complete and honest end to the fighting. It is still maneuvering and creating crises.”
” MSF should travel to Marran and other affected areas to offer its humanitarian services without waiting for an authorization from the authorities, if the organization really wants to offer humanitarian aid according to their goals,” said Habrah.
He maintained that the humanitarian situation in these areas is terrible, in terms of medication, food supplies and services.
“Food supplies that reach Sa’ada are seized by influential people who store them away; citizens are not given -or even sold- any these foods,” he said, adding, “the Red Crescent organization which pretends to offer humanitarian aid –and therefore receives support from international organizations to do so- is dominated by corrupt individuals since only 3 percent of the aid reaches the affected citizens, with influential figures looting all the rest. They offer citizens blankets of poor quality which they purchase at a low price of YR 600 each, and force those who receive them to sign that they have been given blankets worth YR 1700 each.”
“These influential ruling party-affiliated individuals have stored huge quantities of food -originally supplied by international bodies as humanitarian aid to the war-affected citizens in Sa’ada- to later offer it to people in return for their vote for ruling party candidates in the upcoming elections. Meanwhile, the people of Sa’ada are now starving both in the camps and ravaged villages.”
Habra said that the media, both public and independent, don’t report the true facts about humanitarian aid offered by the government and international organizations, and maintained that these organizations neither offer the proper aid nor report violations against human rights in Sa’ada.
