Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen Worse than Darfur or Gaza
Read it and weep: 120,000 children on the verge of starvation. The Yemeni government won’t allow the aid in and there are no medical facilities whatsoever (after the military bombed the last hospital). The bombing has been nearly non-stop for two months. Saudi Arabia is turning away refugees at the border, forcing them to return to the battle field. The US and western nations pledged more development funds, but its a bit late for that. No one is talking about a UN war crimes tribunal for President Saleh, although the evidence is overwhelming.
The southern independence movement is steaming along despite (or because of) the dozens of protesters killed by security forces and thousands arrested. Al Qaeda is running amuck with many sympathizers and collaborators among the security forces and military. These fanatics also have the trust of the central leadership in Afpak, other international connections, an overlay with criminal networks and an unencumbered operating environment .
The oil has been plundered; the gas is about to be. There’s at least a quarter of a million Somali refugees in Yemen getting little to no support and, due to corruption and incompetence, the water in the capital may run out entirely within years. Nothing changed at all since the 12 year old girl and her baby died in childbirth; thousands of other female children are enslaved by early marriage. Oh and the courageous journalist Mohammed al Maqaleh is still “disappeared” after writing about an air raid that killed 87 civilians. The prisons are filled with political prisoners (activists and critics) who undergo severe torture and don’t get much food. The 2009 parliamentary election was delayed and another may never be held.
Its been a long time coming, but the fall of Yemen will rattle every street in the world. These are the good old days.
Soon-to-be-dead Yemeni war refugees. Their hair is orange from malnutrition. These are some of the lucky ones who walked days to one of the pathetically under stocked refugee camps where there’s not nearly enough water, medicine or tents. Temperatures reach over 100 degrees daily. The vast majority of soon-to-be-dead children are trapped by the bombing and fighting, others are sheltering in fields or under bridges. There’s no food coming in to Sa’ada, home to 700,000 civilians, since August 12. Repeated calls by the UN for a humanitarian corridor have been denied by the Yemeni government.
Update: a good reader comment
If the government in the north wins a sort of Yemen will still be there. They’ll be people who have proven that genocide works, so the Somali transients will be no problem. They’ll be a government that has proven that Al Qiada is a valuble ally, and be glad to take the money and keep trainning the recruits. And they will have demonstrated that a free press is the first thing that has to go, and that without television coverage you can do anything (anything!) without international intervention. Eventually the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will either be knocked down by the stream of assassins crossing the border from Yemen or KSA will have to rent the US Marines for a few weeks and put an end to this.
