Yemen Can’t Wait: 19 million Suffer Food Insecurity as Saudi Siege Continues

By Staff, Agencies

Yemen needs an urgent political solution that culminates in the country reaching a solution that ends the suffering caused by the war on the country, which has been going on for eight years, the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] said on Friday.

"Two out of three Yemenis are currently suffering from food insecurity, i.e., about 19 million people," said the Director of Operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross Martin Schuepp on Twitter during his visit to Yemen.

"Many more suffer from a lack of access to basic health care, yet despite all this, Yemen is too often out of the spotlight. We need to ensure that the support we receive from donors and partners continues to enable us to continue our work," Schuepp added.

The UN official explained that "the ICRC is dealing with urgent needs and at the same time trying to come up with solutions that would allow the country to catch a breath". However, he stressed that a "full recovery in the long term will be possible only with a political solution to the ongoing conflict.”

"During the visit, I personally saw local doctors, together with ICRC staff, treating people with gun wounds in a local emergency department, and I spoke to farmers whose livelihoods were severely damaged during the years of conflict," said the Red Cross operations director. "We are trying to provide them with some additional income to restore their livelihoods."

For almost eight years, numerous treaties and laws were violated by the Saudi-UAE aggression coalition, but no international action was taken. Yemen is now known as the world's largest humanitarian crisis, but officials only had empty statements and imposed double standards.

Other than the numerous bombardments, the coalition attacked hospitals and human aid warehouses and imposed an aerial and naval blockade on Yemen, violating Articles 9, 11, 14, and 18 of the Additional Protocol II.

Earlier this year, the Eye of Humanity Center for Rights and Development in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, announced that the number of civilian casualties as a result of the Saudi-led coalition's direct bombing over the past seven years resulted in 46,262 casualties, between martyrs and wounded.

The aggression has so far caused 17,734 deaths, among which are 4017 children, 2434 women, and 11,283 men, while the number of those wounded reached 28,528, including 4,586 children, 2,911 women, and 10,032 men.

In the same context, Entisaf Organization for Child and Women's Rights in Sanaa reported that the siege imposed by the aggression caused the loss of 100,000 newborns, at a rate of six children every two hours, in addition to more than 3,000 children with cancer who are at risk of death.

The United Nations warned in March that millions of Yemenis are at the brink of starvation as a result of the economic collapse caused by the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen for the seventh year in a row, calling for "urgent measures to be taken."