Yemen Faces Social, Economic and Political Collapse

A man carries a sack of wheat flour he received from a local charity during the holy month of Ramadan in Sanaa, Yemen May 29, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah – RTX383HU

Yemen is dying. Obama’s war, now Trump’s, complicit with Saudi Arabia, is destroying the nation, killing it.

Millions of its citizens suffer from endless war, related blockade, untreated diseases, starvation and overall deprivation – US-sponsored genocide, Saudi terror-bombing doing its dirty work.

Stephen O’Brien is UN Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Issuing a statement on what’s ongoing, he said “the situation on the ground has continued to spiral downwards towards total social, economic and institutional collapse.”

“Yemen has the ignominy of being now the world’s largest food security crisis with more than 17 million people who are food insecure, 6.8 million of whom are one step away from famine.”

“Crisis is not coming. It is not looming. It is here today – on our watch, and ordinary people are paying the price.”

Famine stalks the country, the lives of millions at stake. No military solution is possible. The price of limited amounts food and other essentials available is increasingly unaffordable for most Yemenis – the country the poorest Middle East one during normal times.

According to O’Brien, “(t)he economy is collapsing. Employment has all but disappeared. Food and fuel prices have sky-rocketed, and severe disruptions to fishing and agricultural production continue.”

“The bottom line is that what food there is, is largely unaffordable to the vast majority of the population, especially the most vulnerable such as the two million people who remain internally displaced.”

“The institutional capacity of Yemen to respond to the basic needs of the population is crumbling…(a)ll parties to the conflict (unable) to put the genuine needs of the Yemeni people first.”

Healthcare for millions is inadequate or nonexistent. People are dying daily of treatable illnesses and diseases.

Over a million civil servants haven’t been paid for months. Millions of Yemenis face deep poverty, malnutrition and starvation.

The longer conflict continues, the greater the risk to the entire population, cholera the latest disaster to strike the country – 60,000 suspected cases since late April, a projected 150,000 more over the next six months, 500 known deaths so far, likely far greater number, many more certain in the weeks and months ahead.

Humanitarian aid provided is far from what’s desperately needed, conditions worsening by Saudi terror-bombing and blockade.

Yemenis “face a ‘triple threat’ of armed conflict, famine, and deadly disease that has already killed, injured, displaced or otherwise affected millions and it will spare no one if it continues unchecked,” O’Brien explained.

The only solution is international community intervention to stop the carnage. The fate of millions of Yemenis is at stake.