Anti-U.S. Rallies Hit Cities Across Yemen

Date: 07 March 2022 - 22:06

News ID: ۱۰۰۷۷۲

SANA’A (Dispatches) – Yemenis held mass protests in several cities and provinces, including the capital, on Monday to condemn a siege imposed by a Saudi-led coalition and its seizure of ships carrying critically needed petroleum products.
The protests took place in Sana’a, Sa’ada, Hajjah, Ta’izz, al-Jawf, Ibb and al-Bayda, Yemen’s Al-Masirah television network reported.
In Sana’a, tens of thousands of Yemeni people hit the streets to condemn the Saudi oil blockade.
Several officials addressed the crowd, warning Saudi Arabia of retaliation for causing hardship to the Yemeni people. They said Yemenis will never cave in to pressure or accept humiliation of any sort.
In Sa’ada, protesters carried the Yemeni flag and chanted slogans condemning the U.S.-backed Saudi aggression and siege.
The demonstrators also decried the United Nations’ silence on crimes committed against the Yemeni people.
In a statement, the protesters held Washington fully responsible for the siege imposed on Yemen, stressing that the seizure of petroleum products is “an American aggression, and confronting it is a legitimate duty”.
They said the closure of Hudaydah port is “a war crime,” decrying the international community’s silence on that.
The demonstrators reiterated their support for attacks carried out by the Yemeni forces in retaliation for the Saudi aggression.
Last week, Essam al-Mutawakel, a spokesman for the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC), said the Arab country is experiencing the toughest crisis since the start of the Saudi aggression and siege nearly seven years ago.
Yemen’s Minister of Oil and Minerals

Ahmad Abdullah Dares has warned that the Saudi seizure of ships carrying petroleum products could shut down its fuel services and cause “a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies -- including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) -- launched a brutal war against Yemen in March 2015. The war was to eliminate Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall ex-President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh. The conflict, accompanied by a tight siege, has failed to reach its goals, but has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people.

The Saudi-led coalition has also imposed an economic siege on Yemen, preventing fuel shipments from reaching the country, while looting the impoverished nation’s resources.

The UN says more than 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger. The world body also refers to the situation in Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.