Still from the film documentary,'Starving Yemen'2016. BBC Arabic/BBC Our World. All rights reserved.Most of us are glued to our visual media watching the
nightmare unfolding in Aleppo and the systematic bombing and killing of a
besieged population in the city while the world’s politicians are debating allocation
of responsibility in New York between meals at expensive restaurants. Meanwhile, as we are watching Syria, other
tragedies are unfolding in the region, Libya and Iraq…. But I will focus on
Yemen. For a year, the UN has been predicting famine in the war-torn country. Some of us have pointed out that Yemenis,
unlike people elsewhere, don’t go out and starve to death in public. They have a different culture and do it at
home and in private.
These horrors are caused by war, they are not climate change
‘natural’ disasters. They happen because politicians (is that the right word?)
pursue their narrow interests and objectives at the expense of the welfare and
lives of millions of their people. Are these men (at the moment few women are
involved here) completely deprived of any sense of humanity?
Many of us wonder what answers we will give the next
generation when they ask how we could sit and watch these tragedies and do
nothing, just as we asked our parents how they allowed the Nazi holocaust to
happen. And this time, there is no way we can answer that we don’t know. Why
are we so helpless? Is there really nothing we can do? Just write, read, watch, turn up at demos in
front of embassies and be ignored? Is that the best ‘democracy’ can offer?
Visible suffering in
hospitals
While many die at home some Yemenis, particularly children,
do die in hospitals and their suffering is visible. Two journalists have just
reminded us of this. On channel 4’s Unreported
World, Yemen: Britain’s unseen war,
Krishnan Guru-Murthy shows us harrowing scenes from hospitals in Sana’a and
camps in the northern Tihama coastal plain near one of the war’s fronts. Nawal
al Maghafi’s film Starving
Yemen was filmed
in Hodeida itself and in Beit al Faqih, 60 km south on a major asphalted
straight road in the flat Tihama plain. The UN tell us that 14 million Yemenis are ‘food
insecure’ and 7 million of them ‘severely food insecure’, in other words
malnourished or starving.
Both films were made about two months ago, and in areas
relatively easy to reach. Since then the situation has only worsened. In both
films, we see children dying of starvation and the diseases associated with
malnutrition; they also explain the role of war-worsened poverty in the suffering.
The children we see here have some access to medical facilities, despite the
constraints on supplies and power, but they are still starving and dying. Both
these films clearly demonstrate that famine is no longer a remote possibility
for the future, but is happening now. Yemenis are dying of starvation now.
What of all the children further afield? What about
the adults? What about the millions who live in remote mountain villages and
less remote towns in the hinterland, many days’ drive on collapsed tracks and
across destroyed bridges, how do they get food? Highland staple is bread, and
90% of Yemen’s wheat is imported. Although the rains have been good this year
and the sorghum, millet and maize crops should be good, they are by no means
sufficient. Highland rural families at best satisfy 20 to 30% of their food
needs from their own production, urban ones are totally dependent on purchased
food. The UN tell us that 14 million Yemenis are ‘food insecure’ and 7 million
of them ‘severely food insecure’, in other words malnourished or starving.
Food
Why is neither food aid from the WFP nor commercial
food reaching them? Some blame the Saudi-led coalition’s blockade. This is
supposedly no longer a problem as the coalition and the internationally-recognised
regime have given the UN authorisation to implement a Verification and
Inspection Mechanism to speed up the docking of ships at Red Sea ports under
the control of the Huthi-Saleh faction. It has approved the landing of almost
one million tons of food, and 923,000 tons of fuel since May this year and
checked 149 ships. However, the earlier Saudi-led coalition planes’ extremely
precise and efficient targeting of the cranes in Hodeida port disabled them,
thus slowing down all unloading, and extending ships’ waiting time to dock.
This explains the shocking image in Murthy’s film
of a warehouse full of 45,000 tons of decaying wheat flour which was unsuitable
for human consumption by the time it was unloaded; it could have fed 45,000
people for a month. A further question: how come crucial crane cabins were so
precisely and efficiently targeted when apparently incompetent targeting resulted
in strikes on 5 MSF facilities, 4 of which are hospitals?
Disease
Malnourished people are more vulnerable to all
diseases. So the overall worsening of medical services is a further contributor
to a death toll which, up to now, has been systematically under-estimated by the
UN. Recently raised to over 10,000, as Dr Ashwak
Muharram, the doctor in Starving Yemen says, “they only count those
killed directly and ignore those who are killed for lack of medication,
electricity in hospitals, or starvation. Do you have to be killed by an
airstrike to count? What about the rest?” “Do you have to be killed by an airstrike to
count? What about the rest?” Estimates
of total deaths to those directly associated with military action vary widely,
but the lowest figure is that as many people die of indirect causes. This would mean that the current death toll
in Yemen would be over 20,000. Many
observers, particularly those with experience of the medical situation, think
this is a considerable under-estimate.
There is little doubt that the medical services are unable
to cope with the situation. First they are starved of supplies, whether medication,
consumables, or equipment. Second most of them lack electricity as most public
electricity networks are not functioning, many generators are destroyed, and
fuel is expensive and hard to come by.
Thirdly, damage and destruction of medical facilities has had a major
impact. According to a World Health Organisation survey,
published end of September, 274 health facilities have been physically damaged
by the war, and as many as 1900 out of 3507 are either not functioning or only
partially functioning. In 267 districts[2]
surveyed there is not a single doctor. In those hospitals which are
functioning, the first services to reduce operations under stress are operating
theatres and intensive care units: this almost certainly ensures that those
with most acute and urgent problems will die.
'Starving Yemen', 2016. BBC Arabic/BBC Our World. All rights reserved.
Paralysed Central
Bank
Importers of essential commodities have faced
considerable difficulties on the international markets in recent months due to increasing
constraints in the banking system and restrictions on letters of credit
essential for large consignments. This situation is about to worsen
dramatically because of the decision by the coalition-supported, internationally-recognised
government to effectively paralyse the Central Bank (CBY). This was the only
remaining and operating joint national institution in a country in practice
divided between the area under the control of the Huthi-Saleh alliance and the
areas surrounding them, which Hadi’s internationally recognised government
claims to control. The CBY had remained neutral and been as well managed as it could
be in the circumstances. Its reserves have melted in recent months due to a lack
of income while it continued paying salaries. The Hadi government decided to
‘move’ the bank to its temporary capital Aden, and disavow the Bank’s governing
body based in Sana’a, thus ending the truce prevailing on its functioning. This
is the precursor to greater disaster for the people of Yemen.
Taken with the approval of the new ‘Gang of four’,
a group established on 25 August in Riyadh and composed of the US, Saudi
Arabia, UAE and the UK, this decision will certainly cause much more suffering
for the Yemeni people everywhere. Although the Gulf Cooperation Council states
leading the coalition promise to support the new CBY based in Aden with
substantial funds, observers are allowed to wonder whether and how promptly these
promises will be kept; salaries of most military/security personnel in some
parts of the ‘liberated’ areas are paid with very considerable delay. Both military
and civil personnel on government payrolls are demonstrating daily demanding
their salaries throughout Yemen, in areas controlled by both sides. The
effective paralysing of the Central Bank will only worsen the humanitarian
crisis, as it will make imports of food and medical supplies all the more
difficult. It may even prevent remittances from reaching the thousands of
families who are only kept above extreme poverty and starvation by the support
they get from relatives out of Yemen.
Meanwhile, war and
the arms trade
Meanwhile the war goes on. The usual fronts have seen more
violent fighting since the breakdown of the peace negotiations in early August.
The Saudi-led coalition air strikes have intensified. The military stalemate
has certainly been a factor in the decision to end the truce on the Central
Bank, a decision guaranteed to worsen suffering. The death toll mounts, from strikes, from
malnutrition and starvation. The
decision makers, whether Yemeni on both sides, or their supporters now focused
on the new Gang of four, continue to show total contempt for Yemeni citizens’
lives and welfare. The Saudi-led coalition air strikes
have intensified.
At long last there seems to be some public momentum to put
pressure on the British and US states to stop their sales of weapons and
ammunition to the leading state in the coalition, Saudi Arabia. Opposition is growing. Both the British
Parliament and the US Congress are witnessing moves to stop the arms sales;
they have been unsuccessful up to now but at least they are showing concern. It
is unlikely that our governments will prioritise the lives and welfare of
millions of Yemenis over short-term profits for the arms trade from sales to
Gulf Cooperation Council states, and the ‘jobs’ they provide. High tech jobs
which could be re-cycled into more peaceful and useful sectors. Britain will
see a Judicial Review of the government’s arms sales policy next January.
Can we achieve more? Readers are urged to write to any
officials of their choosing, demanding an end to the arms sales, demanding that
their government call for a more even handed resolution at the United Nations
Security Council which might make peace negotiations more likely to succeed,
calling for an end to this pointless war. You can also help by informing as
many people as you can of the situation, so Yemen stops being the ‘forgotten’
war. Donations to Medecins Sans Frontières or an alternative NGO of your choice
active in Yemen will certainly be used to alleviate the suffering of a few
people at least. Each of these small actions has a minimal impact, but if
enough of us do enough of them, who knows? We may be able to answer our
children that we put an end to some of the horrors of the second decade of this
century.
[1] Yemen has a total of 333 districts.
Thanks go to Nawal
al Maghafi and BBC for permission to use the two stills from her film.