UNHCR: Yemen Hit by 5,000+ Airstrikes in Six Months

Local Editor

According to a new report, the number of clashes and airstrikes in Yemen had increased dramatically in 2017: In the first six months of the year, there were 5,676 airstrikes in Yemen - much higher that then total of 3,936 in all of 2016. Data gathered by the Protection Cluster in Yemen - led by the UN's refugee agency [UNHCR] - found that the average number of monthly clashes has also increased by 56 percent.

The uptick follows the same trend recorded in Iraq and Syria, where US-led airstrikes had led a dramatic rise in civilian casualties this year.

Yemen's conflict had been a relatively short one when compared to Iraq and Syria. Since March 2015, a Saudi-led US-backed coalition had waged a war on Yemen.

The UN estimates that roughly 10,000 people had died, and according to the World Health Organization, 500,000 had contracted cholera in a country where nearly three million had been displaced. It had also been on the brink of famine for about a year.

As with so many major humanitarian responses, the UN funding for Yemen is seriously underfunded - the $2.3 billion needed for the effort is still $1.4 billion short.
Shabia Mantoo, UNCHR's spokesperson in Sanaa, said the country's public institutions are "buckling" under the strain and its health care system is "functioning by half."

"Yemen has been on the verge...on the brink of collapse. We've been saying that for a while, but then no one anticipated that Yemen would have to deal with the world's worse cholera outbreak. Everyone was talking about famine," said Mantoo, adding the Yemen is "not a household name."

"People are not aware of the severity of the conflict. It doesn't receive enough attention. It doesn't receive enough airtime," said Mantoo. "The only solution is peace."

The Saudi-led coalition had been in control of Yemen's airspace since the start of the deadlocked conflict.

Armed with weapons purchased from the US, the Saudi coalition has bombed schools, hospitals, and funerals.

In addition to the Saudi-let airstrikes, there had also been an increase in covert US operations in Yemen. According to the Bureau for Investigative Journalism [TBIJ] - a UK-based outfit with a special project tracking drone strikes and casualties - there had been at least 11 confirmed US drone strikes in Yemen as well as 80 additional US attacks using jet aircraft and cruise missiles.

Jack Serle, a specialist reporter with TBIJ said, "It was a really strange period of about...maybe eight weeks in March or April this year, when about US 80 strikes hit in a relatively small part of the country. A sudden glut over the space of at most, two months. And very little is known about the specifics of what happened in each of those strikes".

Access to the area and to sources - many of whom are afraid to speak - has been tough, said Serle, which does not help when trying to untangle what is really happening in Yemen.

"What's especially bizarre, is that you have this aerial bombardment by the GCC - the Saudi coalition - [and]...like, suddenly a whole bunch of AQ [al-Qaeda] people running around the hillsides and the opportunity was there [for the US] to carry out the strikes, which doesn't seem entirely feasible, given the volume of the attacks," said Serle.

The fact that the US carried out scores of its own attacks in a situation, despite arming Saudi Arabia and its coalition forces to the extent that they can carry out over 31 strikes a day, points to the US having different interests in Yemen than the Gulf Arab coalition it is arming.

Source: ThinkProgress, Edited by website team