Page 8 The Skanner June 28, 2017
News
From Destruction to Cholera, Yemen War Brings Disasters
Fighting continues at a stalemate, while civilians face disease and massive food insecurity
legations and says all se-
curity forces are under
Hadi’s authority.
The Emirati role re-
flects how the Yemen
conflict has been region-
alized from the start.
With U.S. backing,
Saudi Arabia launched
its coalition, contend-
ing that Iran was behind
the rebels, known as
Houthis, who overran
the north and the capital,
Sanaa. The coalition’s air
bombardment averted
the complete fall of the
government of Presi-
dent Abed Rabbo Hadi
Mansour and prevented
the Houthis from taking
over the south.
But now both sides are
locked in. The north re-
mains in the hands of the
Houthis backed by army
units loyal to Hadi’s pre-
decessor, former Presi-
dent Ali Abdullah Saleh,
who was removed by a
2011 uprising. The south
is ostensibly under the
authority of Hadi, but he
spends most of his time
in exile in the Saudi cap-
ital, Riyadh.
Here is a look at the
multiple levels on which
the war has devastated
the country of 26 mil-
lion, which even before
the conflict was the Arab
world’s poorest nation.
HUMANITARIAN
DISASTER
In May, a senior U.N.
humanitarian
official
declared that Yemen was
site of “the world’s larg-
est food security crisis.”
More than 17 million des-
perately need food, and
nearly 7 million of those
are “one step away from
famine.”
Last week came the
newest horrible super-
lative. The World Health
Organization said Yemen
faced “the worst cholera
outbreak in the world.”
More than 1,400 people,
a quarter of them chil-
dren, have died of chol-
era the past two months.
Those
nightmares
come on top of other in-
tertwined effects of the
war.
More than 3 million
people have been driven
from their homes. More
than 10,000 people have
killed. There are major
fuel shortages caused
by a coalition blockade.
Health services have col-
lapsed. Some 1 million
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AP PHOTO/HANI MOHAMMED, FILE
By MAGGIE MICHAEL
Associated Press
CAIRO — More than
two years of civil war
have led to continually
compounding disasters
in Yemen. Fighting rages
on in a deadly stalemate.
The economy has been
bombed into ruins. Hun-
ger is widespread, and
a new misery has been
added: the world’s big-
gest current outbreak of
cholera, with more than
200,000 cases.
The south, meanwhile,
has seen the growing
power of the United Arab
Emirates, which is part of
a coalition meant to pro-
tect the internationally
recognized government
in the war with Shiite
rebels while also fight-
ing al-Qaida. But at the
same time, the UAE has
set up its own security
forces, running virtually
a state-within-a-state and
fueling the south’s inde-
pendence movement.
An AP investigation
last week documented 18
secret prisons run by the
UAE or its allies, where
former prisoners said
torture was widespread.
The UAE denied the al-
In this April, 13, 2017 file photo, Yemenis present documents in order to receive food rations provided by
a local charity, in Sanaa, Yemen. More than two years of civil war have led to continually compounding
disasters in Yemen. Fighting rages on in a deadly stalemate, the economy has been bombed into ruins,
hunger is widespread, and a new misery has been added: Cholera, the world’s biggest current outbreak
with more than 200,000 cases.
civil servants have not
been paid for months,
including 30,000 health
workers.
The cholera outbreak
spread with startling
speed after two months
of heavy rains in the
north, exacerbated by
the pile-up of garbage in
streets — trash collectors
are among those who
have gone unpaid — and
the lack of access to clean
water for millions of
people.
Around 5,000 new
cholera cases are report-
ed daily. Aid officials fear
it could pass a quarter
million people by Sep-
tember. The U.N. is send-
ing one million doses
of vaccines, the largest
since Haiti’s outbreak in
2010.
Dealing with cholera is
pulling away resources
and food meant to go to
battling famine, warned
the U.N. humanitarian
chief in Yemen, Jamie
McGoldrick.
Yemen long struggled
with malnutrition. But
the coalition embargo
and the fighting have
wrecked
distribution
systems and tipped the
country into near fam-
ine.
A child under the age
of five dies every 10 min-
utes of preventable caus-
es, and 2.2 million ba-
bies, boys and girls, are
acutely
malnourished
with almost half a mil-
lion children suffering
from severe acute mal-
nutrition, a 63 percent
increase since late 2015,
according to Stephen
O’Brien of the Office of
Coordination of Human-
itarian Assistance.
DEVASTATED NORTH
Coalition
warplanes
have pounded the north
relentlessly, hitting mil-
itary camps, weapons
storehouses and armed
compounds.
But they have also hit
hospitals, schools, out-
door markets and resi-
dential areas to a degree
that rights groups have
said may amount to a war
crime. One of the deadli-
est strikes, in October,
his a Sanaa funeral hall,
killing and wounding
hundreds. The U.S. has
backed the coalition with
intelligence,
satellite
imagery and billions of
dollars in weapons sales.
This year, American
drone strikes targeting
al-Qaida have mounted
dramatically.
The main battle zones
are along the western
coastline, on the moun-
tainous outskirts of Sa-
naa and around the city
of Taiz. But front lines
have not moved signifi-
cantly in months. Multi-
ple peace initiatives have
fallen apart.
Meanwhile, the Houth-
is have clamped down
against dissent. The op-
position says they hold
thousands of political
prisoners in secret pris-
ons, including in private
houses. Detainees are
often accused or sup-
porting the coalition
or belonging to Sunni
extremist groups. Jour-
nalists have been arrest-
ed, tortured, and forced
to flee to the south or
abroad.