YEMEN’S Ministry of Public Health and Population has given a detailed report on the devastating effects the Saudi-led coalition war – which it launched in 2015 – has had on the people of the country.
In a press conference held in the Yemeni capital Sana’a on Sunday, the Ministry focused particularly on the health sector, urging a swift and complete end to the siege and aggression against the impoverished nation.
‘Regarding the repercussions of the blockade on the health situation in Yemen, the ministry confirmed that the blockade has resulted in acute malnutrition rates to more than 632,000 children under the age of five and 1.5 million pregnant and lactating women,’ Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported.
The United States-Saudi aggression has killed 15,483 citizens and injured 31,598 others, the ministry said – and 25 per cent of the victims were children and women.
It also noted that the limited opening of Sana’a international airport and the port of Hudaydah under the rickety United Nations-sponsored truce has failed to meet even the minimum needs of the health sector and patients.
In the eight years of the continued Saudi-led siege on Yemen 40,320 pregnant women and 103,680 children have died.
‘The siege and intense bombardment with prohibited weapons has caused a high rate of congenital abnormalities and miscarriages, with an average of 350,000 miscarriages and 12,000 malformations,’ the Ministry stressed, and there has been an eight per cent increase in premature births compared to the situation before the aggression.
The blockade has also increased the number of cancer patients by 50 per cent with 46,204 cases registered during the year 2021 alone.
The Saudi-led aggression has also completely destroyed 162 health facilities, and another 375 partially and put them out of work.
Direct Saudi bombings have killed 66 medical personnel and destroyed 70 ambulances, the Ministry said, pointing out that the aggression is preventing the payment of salaries to health sector cadres and employees.
The Saudi-led aggression and blockade has also prevented the entry of vital medical equipment, as international companies have stopped supplying medicines to Yemen.
The Ministry emphasised that lifting the siege on Yemen and a complete end to the Saudi-led aggression is the vital ‘first and correct step to address the humanitarian crisis’ in the war-ravaged country.
Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the United States and other Western countries, mainly the UK and Canada.
This coalition, headed by Saudi Arabia, was made up of nine other Middle East and African countries, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Sudan, and Egypt, among others
The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functioning government in Yemen.
While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The Yemeni Ministry of Water and Environment has also issued an urgent warning about drinking water pollution in the country’s strategic coastal province of Hudaydah, raising alarms about the serious health hazards derived from repeated exposure to traces of heavy metals, including lead, mercury, and arsenic – a result of the bombing and the tight Saudi-led blockade on Yemen’s water and environment sectors.
Abdul Karim al-Safiani, deputy director of Yemen’s Water Resources Organisation, said they have discovered high levels of radioactive substances and toxic metals in a number of fresh water resources in Hudaydah province.
He emphasised that since 2015, the Saudi-led military coalition has destroyed more than 2,995 water facilities, including dams, barriers, pumps, reservoirs, and irrigation systems and networks.
Safiani also announced that more than 20 million Yemenis – according to statistics provided by international organisations – do not have access to clean drinking water.
Abdulsalam al-Hakimi, deputy minister of Water and Environment, also said that the damage to Yemen’s water and environment sector as a result of the ongoing Saudi-led aggression and siege is estimated at over $1.7 billion.
Hakimi stressed that irregular diesel fuel distribution and its high price have forced water pumping systems to decrease their capacity.
The Yemeni authorities have, under a recent United Nations-sponsored ceasefire, tried to import spare parts for the national water and sewage treatment networks, and several water wells and treatment plants have come on stream as a result.
But the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen has resulted in a lack of clean drinking water and sanitation services for nearly half of the country’s population.
According to the United Nations itself, Yemenis are in urgent need of water, sanitation, and hygiene assistance, while access to clean and safe drinking water remains crucial for the good health and survival of a whole nation.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has also said that Yemen is suffering from the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, as nearly 15.4 million people lack access to safe water and sanitation.
Meanwhile, over 4,772 displaced families in camps in the city of Qataba, northwest of Dhalea province, southern Yemen, are facing starvation.
The local authorities, citing a report issued by the Executive Unit for Internally Displaced Persons said that in the month of August 2022 alone: ‘There are more than 2,433 displaced families facing the threat of starvation, as they do not have food, 2,038 other families need to pay the rent on their homes, and 3,801 others do not have safe drinking water.’
The report said that these displaced people face great suffering in terms of shelter, education, health, food, protection, water and environmental sanitation.
Regarding humanitarian interventions by international organisations, spokesman for the Executive Unit for the Displaced, Ahmed Al-Dhahyani, said that although some of this aid had covered some of the needs of the displaced, – the volume is now so great that humanitarian organisations cannot keep up.
Meanwhile, the Sana’a government’s Military Negotiating Committee said that the Saudi-led coalition’s representatives did not attend negotiations in Jordan and it continues to violate the truce.
The Committee denounced the silence of the United Nations in the face of all these obstacles by the Saudi-led coalition.
Head of the Military Committee, Major General Abdullah al-Razami, stressed that one of the negotiations’ most important tasks is to reach a clear and reliable mechanism that ensures the payment of salaries, and the complete opening of Sana’a airport, without restrictions, as is the right of the Yemeni people.
Major General Al-Razami called for the opening of Yemen’s ports to oil and commercial derivatives ships, and to stop harassing and piracy, as this violates all international laws.
He further stressed that it is possible to make progress on peace only after the payment of salaries, the entry of ships and the expansion of flights.
Employees of Yemeni Petroleum Company, YPC, organised a protest sit-in in front of the United Nations office in Sana’a, denouncing the blockade and piracy on fuel tankers.
The executive director of the company, Ammar Al-Adhra’i, held the UN responsible for the actions of the forces of aggression and its violation of the truce, calling for pressure on the US-Saudi aggression to release four siezed oil tankers and allow them to enter port.
Al-Adhra’i stressed that the United Nations is actually a party to doubling the suffering of Yemenis, because fuel is a vital and essential commodity, and the detention of oil tankers and the denial of access of fuel to civilians is a criminal act.
He said: ‘The coalition of aggression is currently detaining four fuel ships in light of the continuation of the temporary truce after the expiry of nearly a month of extending the truce.
‘Today we have two ships in Djibouti, one of them gas, which passed inspection and the other diesel, and they will be detained along with the other four ships.’
Al-Adhra’i explained that it was agreed that 54 oil ships could be sent to Yemen, but only 33 ships had arrived since the start of the temporary truce, and the UN and its envoy did not move as required to pressure the US-Saudi aggression to let the fuel ships enter.
‘We tell the Secretary-General of the United Nations that fuel ships have been seized and pirated since the start of the verification and inspection mechanism in Djibouti,’ Al-Adhra’i added.
A statement issued by the protest condemned the shameful UN silence regarding piracy on fuel ships of a humanitarian character and preventing them from entering the port of Hodeidah despite their inspection and having obtained permits.
