March 29, 2018
Photograph from article below
I very much wanted to write about something positive today, about personal courage, creativity, art, solidarity – your pick. All of that can indeed be found here:
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/26/yemen-war-three-year-anniversary-haifa-subay-street-art/
The article describes how women in Yemen deal with the horrors of the Saudi led/US supported war that started in March 2015, by designing and painting street art that expresses the conditions of their existence.
And yet – I had to look up the facts around that war, and the numbers are apocalyptic. This report gives you the larger picture:https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/yemen-the-forgotten-war/
Here is a short summary three years into the war. The Red Cross calls it the world’s single largest humanitarian crisis.
(Images are from the US – I have never been to Yemen.)
The total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Yemen is 22.2 million – or 76% of the population – including 11.3 million children.
The Saudis and allies have hit Yemen with 15,000 airstrikes.
5,000 children have been killed.
8,700 civilians have been killed
50,000 civilians have been wounded
1.9 million children are not in school, and both sides have recruited children, some as young as ten, as fighters
11.3 million children need humanitarian assistance, with many on the verge of going hungry.
All in all, 22.2 million Yemenis of all ages need humanitarian assistance, 3/4s of the population.
There have been a million cholera cases and there is the threat of another outbreak.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a U.S. aid organization, says one child younger than 5 dies in Yemen every 10 minutes from preventable causes.
And why? Under dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh Yemen had been recipient of much Saudi aid (which went mostly into his bank account). The Saudis tried to spread their form of Wahhabism producing a backlash amongst the Yemeni Shiites, the Houthis. In 2012 Saleh was overthrown and in the ensuing chaos the Houthis tried to engage in a coup. This led Saudi crown prince MbS (Mohammed bin Salman) to start the bombing campaign, claiming the Houthis were Iranian agents (something widely rejected by scholars.)
Most importantly three years of bombing, with the help of Western allies, have indiscriminately targeted civilian populations.
We are, of course, not supposed to talk about that.
The Trump administration urged silence during the recent visit of MbS in Washington DC. G-d forbid, large numbers of weapons sales could be endangered…..
