UNICEF: 21mn Yemenis Need Life-Saving Aid, Half Children
SANA’A (Dispatches) – Almost 21 million people in war-torn Yemen, or nearly 70 percent of the total population, need life-saving humanitarian assistance due to the Saudi-led aggression, the United Nations Children’s Fund says.
“This includes 11.3 million children or nearly 80 percent of children,” UNICEF said in a Twitter post.
In Yemen, nearly 400,000 children under the age of five are slipping from acute malnutrition to severe acute malnutrition, the humanitarian agency said.
Backed by the U.S. and major European powers, the Saudis waged the war in 2015 with the objective of reinstalling the former Riyadh-friendly regime in Yemen and crushing the Ansarullah resistance movement.
The war has stopped well shy of all of its goals, despite killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and turning entire Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Yemeni forces have continued to grow stronger in the face of the Saudi-led invaders, advancing toward strategic areas held by Saudi-led mercenaries, including Ma’rib province, and conducting several rounds of counterstrikes against Saudi Arabia and the UAE in recent months.
Yemen’s information minister says the United States is responsible for the crippling blockade on Yemen and slammed Western powers’ response to the suffering of Muslim nations for lacking humanity.
Speaking to al-Masirah TV channel, Dhaifallah al-Shami stressed that the policy of starving the Yemenis and besieging them will fail as they will not sit idly by.
“The siege of the Yemeni nation is an entirely American decision. Today, the Yemeni nation warns all the arrogant powers that it is moving towards its great options,” he said.
“Our nation does not accept to die of starvation and siege. It has many options to defeat the siege.”
Shami further emphasized that the Yemenis are “steadfast and patient,” and that it is not possible to kill them by confiscating ships carrying oil derivatives to the Arab country.
Saudi Spy Drone Shot Down
In a new development, Yemeni armed forces have shot down a U.S.-built Boeing Insitu ScanEagle spy drone operated by the Saudi-led military coalition as it was flying over the country’s northern province of Hajjah.
The spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, announced via Twitter that Yemeni air defense units shot down the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as it was carrying out hostile acts over the Harad district on Tuesday morning.
The Boeing Insitu ScanEagle is a small, long-endurance, low-altitude UAV built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing, and is used by the Saudi-led coalition for espionage activities.
Meanwhile, dozens of Saudi-sponsored militants loyal to the former Saudi-backed regime in Yemen have reportedly defected and joined the Yemeni armed forces in the country’s oil-producing province of Ma’rib, as Yemeni armed forces continue to make decisive gains in their battles against Saudi mercenaries.
Several high-ranking militant commanders loyal to the former regime have also been killed after multiple powerful explosions struck their positions in Ma’rib province.
Local sources, who requested not to be named, said one of the blasts targeted the camp of UAE-backed militants – better known by the nom de guerre the Giants – on the borders between Ma’rib and Shabwah provinces.
Another explosion shook the command center of Saudi-backed militants. There were no immediate reports about the extent of damage caused.