It is time the UK, the US, France and other Western countries to reshape their policies towards Saudi Arabia, or else Yemen might experience an acute humanitarian crisis.
This West Asian nation, situated at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, has been going through a political turmoil for several years. On December 26, 2017, 54 innocent civilians were killed and 32 others received serious injuries after Saudi fighter jets targeted a crowded market in Yemen’s Al Hayma District. Fifty-four is not a big number, keeping in mind that the country has lost 10,000 citizens in the last few years and more than 20 million of its 28 million population need immediate assistance.

Jamie McGoldrick, the UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Yemen, has expressed serious concern over the current political scenario, stating that the ongoing conflict could lead to “the destruction of the country and the incommensurate suffering of its people”.
The Saudi-led coalition started conducting airstrikes in Yemen from March 2015 after Houthi rebels’ seized control of a part of the country (with Iran’s help) in late 2014. However, the allies of Saudi Arabia overlooked the facts that the government of Riyadh-backed Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi failed to tackle corruption, unemployment and food insecurity.
President Hadi left Sana’a in March 2015, but the impoverished civilians of Yemen faced the heat. In a report, the Human Rights Watch said in 2016 that 60% of civilians in the country were killed in airstrikes. The NGO said that “airstrikes have damaged or destroyed numerous civilian objects, including homes, markets, hospitals and schools, as well as commercial enterprises” that “appear to be in violation of international law”.

Sana’a

Later in November 2017, Saudi Arabia and its allies made an attempt to ruin the Yemeni economy by imposing an air, land and sea blockade on the country in order “to stem the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran”. In the last two and half months, the situation has pushed nearly seven million people to the brink of famine. Moreover, around 900,000 Yemenis are infected with cholera.
Meanwhile, the Amnesty International has requested the Western nations to reshape their ties with Saudi and help Yemen overcome the crisis. The London-based NGO also urged the Western governments to discourage Riyadh to continue waging war against the Yemeni people, instead of fuelling the crisis. According to the Amnesty International, the West should immediately stop selling lucrative weapons to Saudi Arabia. “Countries – such as the US, the UK and France – which continue to supply coalition members with arms, are allowing Saudi Arabia and its allies to flagrantly flout international law and risk being complicit in grave violations, including war crimes,” it said.

Mosque Al-Saleh, Sana’a

According to the Amnesty International, these countries should “immediately halt the flow of arms and military assistance to members of the Saudi-led coalition for use in Yemen. This includes any equipment or logistical support being used to maintain this blockade”.
While Britain had sold arms worth USD 4.6 billion to Riyadh, France had sold EUR 9 billion of weaponry and the US supplied arms worth USD 110 billion from 2009 to 2016. Stephen McCloskey, the Director of Belfast-based Centre for Global Education, has said that Yemen is a fine example of human rights abuse and the worst ‘victim’ of the ‘war on terror’ after the 9/11. He, too, urged the Western powers not to push the “besieged and starved population” of Yemen to the “brink of famine”.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das