Yemeni civilians suffering as war rages on, UN says
- 2016-06-04
- 13:57:11
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To people in the West, the war in Yemen is a small, obscure conflict. But in the past year it has spiralled into a vicious regional and international war that has driven more than 2 million people from their homes, killed more than 3,200 civilians and left millions of others hungry and destitute.
“The scale of the emergency is tremendous,” the UN’s Yemen co-ordinator, Jamie McGoldrick, said on Thursday. “The scale of the needs is massive and the depth of the crisis is immeasurable.”
Belkis Wille of Human Rights Watch has witnessed the descent of the small Middle Eastern country into lower and lower circles of hell, beginning with a post-election breakdown of a power-sharing agreement between factions, and accelerated by separatism and a coup by Shiite Houthi rebels.
But when Saudi Arabia entered the war in March 2015, alarmed by what it saw as a power grab by Shiite Iran — backing the Houthis — a relentless bombing campaign began, supported by a group of Arab countries, the U.S., Britain and France. The military operation is to reinstate ousted president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia.
“There were several raging conflicts before this war,” says Wille, who lived and worked in Yemen beginning in 2013. “But until the Saudis started bombing, in coalition with other countries, there wasn’t mass destruction of the infrastructure and crippling of the country.”
Human Rights Watch has documented the war’s devastating effects on civilians. “There are unlawful airstrikes we think amounted to war crimes.” The Houthis may also be guilty of war crimes, she adds. “Katyusha rockets and shells are fired into the middle of civilian areas in Yemen and across the border in Saudi Arabia.”
Although the U.S. has not joined in the Saudi-led bombings directly, it has reportedly provided targeting advice as well as refuelling for war planes. There have been international calls for Washington to cease its arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
The UN says that more than 500 children were killed in airstrikes in the past year, and about 10,000 children under the age of 5 died from “totally avoidable and preventable diseases.” It has listed the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi rebels among groups that have committed grave violations against children last year.
An air and sea blockade on Yemen, which relies on imports for 90 per cent of its goods, has also had a “dramatic effect on the ordinary person who is buying food and medicine and just can’t afford it any more,” Wille says.
Fuel shortages have made it increasingly difficult to live, and medical clinics have closed because of lack of fuel and medicine. Sick and disabled people cannot afford to hire taxis, which pay black market prices for gas, to take them to distant hospitals.
According to the UN, Yemen’s 22 million citizens are in an “increasingly dire” situation, and close to 8 million are considered “most vulnerable” and in need of urgent aid. Only 17 per cent of $1.8 billion in funds requested by the world body last year has arrived.
Yemen’s plight has been worsened by the entry of armed groups, including Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Daesh. As the Houthis, allied with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, have been pushed from southern areas, they have filled the gap.
“Al Qaeda was always an element of Yemeni history,” says Wille. “But in the power vacuum we saw it take a huge amount of territory in the south, more than ever before. They have become a power broker and a political player.”
Meanwhile, she says, a struggle between Al Qaeda and newly emerged Daesh has added to the violence. “They are carrying out nasty attacks on civilians and there’s no real law enforcement structure in control. Daesh affiliates are using recruitment to leech members away from Al Qaeda. They’re offering a higher daily wage.”
The spreading influence of terrorist groups has made peace an even more distant prospect for Yemen.
“It’s hard to see what could be done now to turn things around,” Wille says. “First and foremost, it’s crucial for the aerial campaign to stop before there is any improvement in the ground. But with these different groups fighting, even if the bombing ends, I don’t see any reason why the conflict would stop anytime soon.”
Peace talks between representatives of the ousted Hadi government and Houthi rebels have continued for weeks amid accusations of ceasefire violations, although UN officials have welcomed some progress. The U.S. is also continuing its campaign of drone strikes against Al Qaeda.
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