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Aid Agencies Blame Yemen Blockade, Economic Collapse for Cholera Outbreak

Aid Agencies Blame Yemen Blockade, Economic Collapse for Cholera Outbreak
folder_openYemen access_time6 years ago
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Leading international organizations including Red Cross and the UN pointed to the Saudi-led blockade and bombing campaign over the past two years as central causes behind the cholera epidemic that has already taken over 180 lives.

Aid Agencies Blame Yemen Blockade, Economic Collapse for Cholera Outbreak

Calling the situation "catastrophic," Dominik Stillhart, International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] Director of Operations, told RT from Yemen that with 11,000 confirmed cases the hospitals he personally visited in the capital, Sana'a, were "really struggling to cope," with "heartbreaking" scenes of people having to share beds, amid a never-ceasing inflow of new patients.

Stillhart went on saying that that 160 hospitals and other medical facilities have been destroyed, predominantly as the result of bombing by the Saudi-led, Western-backed coalition that began in spring 2015, "seriously weakening the health system."

The ICRC second-in-command also blamed the Saudi-imposed aerial and naval blockade for leading to the famine and poverty that provided a breeding ground for the epidemic, which has resulted in a declaration of a state of emergency.

"There is a situation where people are not only affected by the direct consequences of conflict, but the economy has been seriously slowed down, because it is very costly to move goods across the country through the different frontlines. Then there is the aerial blockade, and it is difficult to move food into some of the seaports," said Stillhart, who insisted that ICRC have "repeatedly called on the conflict participants" to allow full access for humanitarian supplies.

Stillhart estimated that over 17 million Yemenis - two-thirds of the population - require humanitarian assistance, and 10 million are in "acute need" of food aid.

The collapse of the economy has led to civil servants, including public sanitation workers, not being paid for eight months, which has meant that "garbage-laden water has been running through the streets of Sana'a when it rains," creating the perfect conditions for a disease that has mostly been eliminated even in the developing world, says Sara Tesorieri, Advocacy and Policy Adviser for Norwegian Refugee Council in Yemen.

"Cholera is preventable. If you have the health systems and the response in place, you can control its spread, but the systems here have just been decimated. And the authorities don't have the capacity that they had even four months ago to deal with this," Tesorieri told RT from Sana'a.

Source: RT, Edited by website team

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