Rights groups: US prolonging Yemen war by supporting Saudi, UAE

The US’ continued military support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE is prolonging the war in Yemen, leading human rights groups have said.

In a joint statement, OXFAM, Care, the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children and the Norwegian refugee Council called for America to halt its military support for the Gulf states as this is leading to the famine in the war torn country.

“By providing such extensive military and diplomatic support for one side of the conflict, the United States is deepening and prolonging a crisis that has immediate and severe consequences for Yemen, and civilians are paying the price,” reads the statement.

The US must cease “all military support for the Saudi-UAE coalition in Yemen in order to save millions of lives”, they added, and to “back up its recent call for a cessation of hostilities with genuine diplomatic pressure.”

Save the Children: 85,000 Yemeni children died from malnutrition

Impoverished Yemen has remained in a state of civil war since 2014, when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sana’a.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled government.

Since the coalition intervened in 2015, Yemen has become the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the UN. Some 10,000 people have been killed in the war, while more than 11 per cent of the country’s population has been displaced.

Twenty-nine million civilians are in need of humanitarian aid while 14 million are at risk of famine as a result of the war and subsequent sieges which the Saudi-led coalition has imposed on a number of cities in an effort to starve and fore Houthi fighters out of them.

ICRC: Yemen suffers from triad death, destruction and hunger

While all eyes were on Khashoggi’s case, Yemen is dying – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]