War & Epidemics – The agonizing case of Yemen

Lutf Ullah S. Khan

Yemen- a product of an incomplete revolt. U.N reports it as the worst of humanitarian crisis on the planet. With thousands of civilian misplaced and dead Yemen crisis is the one of the deadliest yet constantly ignored conflict in the Middle East.

Yemen was not always like that a series of event led to this catastrophe. After the Arab Spring, in 2015, Civil war broke out, when the Houthis, a Shiite group of rebels backed by Iran, took up arms with the aim to overthrow the Sunni ruling government, backed by Saudi Arabia with the coalition of neighboring countries. The Houthis claimed to have been discriminated and marginalized by the prevailing government. In 2014, following the overthrown of Saudi backed Yemeni government and taken over of the Capital Sanaa by the Houthis, came a direct Saudi-led intervention in the Civil war, escalating to a full-fledged war, in the form of relentless airstrikes targeting schools, hospitals, market places causing colossal mass destructions. What more harrowing followed, that the Saudi-led coalition blocked the ways for the supplies to move in or out, which Yemenis were desperately needed, subsequently increasing the chance of starvation and malnourishment in a country already crippled by war. The conflict, with the time, has turned to a proxy war as Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two major rivals, are underlying in two opposite sides in foreign war. Though, the Iran have kept denying the weaponry support to the Houthis. Ever since the war has erupted, Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, became the largest buyer of weapons from the U.S in the world. U.K and France have also been selling its weapons to the Saudi Arabia, amid the ongoing war. The horrendous waged-war, turning the historical enriched country to a playground of the beneficiaries made it a living hell for its country people, children in particular.

The after-effects, in the history of wars, have brought more catastrophe than the war itself. After the scores of attacks, killings tens of thousands of people, it also has fragmented its major medical facilities. A report suggests that Yemen has 3.6 million internally displaced people. The drastic shortage in hygienic food and clean water, in particular, have resulted in the outbreak of Cholera and Diarrhea epidemics, killing thousands. Every nation across globe has become vulnerable after Covid-19 unleashed its terror on world health system. With every passing day thousands of people are losing their lives to covid-19 . Perhaps, no country is more vulnerable to COVID-19’s wreckage than Yemen. The country, even before the outbreak of the latter virus, was desperately struggling to survive. The United Nations have been providing with its massive aid, operating in the war torn land. It recently reported to have been running out of the donations, as the member countries themselves battling with COVID-19. The growing number of Coronavirus infected cases with lack of funding threatens critical assistance for the Yemen ‘most vulnerable’ to COVID-19 pandemic.

This tragedy is marking our history with more bodies of innocent civilian who died because champions of democracy were busy sabotaging their demands and existence altogether.