Al-Thawra Net
In 2014 when Houthi movement seized Yemen’s capital, Sana’a followed by the Saudi-led coalition military campaign in 2015, the kind of gross devastation about to hit the already poorest Arab nation was predictable.
However, it was not clear how the two warring sides would form an intentional plan to create and/or exploit, today’s largest humanitarian crisis and the world’s largest cholera outbreak since records began.
What we do know today, is that the humanitarian crisis is intentional, deliberately caused by the Saudi-led coalition, and what international humanitarians call a “man-made disaster”.
Almost three years into this long war, the Saudi-led coalition, in particular, is realizing that military force is not yielding their intended victory, and instead, is using access to humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip, blocking deliveries to those most in need.
Recently, a top UN officer pointed out how the coalition is blocking fuel for UN planes engaged in humanitarian work. “We face logistic hurdles when it comes to the facilitation of the workfare… on the question of jet fuel, at the moment we have two flights going to Sana’a, one from Amman and one from Djibouti,” said Auke Lootsma, UNDP country director for Yemen.
Obstructing aid delivery in Yemen should have caused a global outrage as the Saudi-led coalition is breaching international humanitarian law in armed conflicts by willfully impeding relief supplies.
Human Rights Watch says that “under international humanitarian law, parties to a conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of impartially distributed humanitarian aid to the population in need”.
