UNITED NATIONS. After three months of bombardment, blockade and fighting between warring factions, Yemen is in the midst of what the health ministry calls the biggest disaster in its modern history.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that “Yemen’s very existence hangs in the balance” as he launched Yemen peace talks in Geneva with a call for a humanitarian truce.
Sky News arrived in Sana’a on Friday after taking a flight that stopped in Saudi Arabia for three hours of “security checks”.
The Yemenis on the flight, anxious to get home and see their families after spending months stranded, were angry at the fact the Saudis were deciding if they were allowed into their own country.
But this is the reality of the Saudi-led campaign and blockade of Yemen. They control the air space and what is allowed into the country.
The destruction around Sana’a is heart-breaking. This was one of the most beautiful cities in the Middle East and now large parts lay in ruins.
But the capital is doing better than other areas, especially in the south, that have reportedly been completely destroyed not just by coalition airstrikes but also by fighting between the Houthis and their allies loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and anti-Houthi forces intent on making sure no more of the country falls into rebel hands.
Saudi Arabia has been targeting Houthi rebel infrastructure and weapons depots. But recently, at least in Sana’a, civilian areas have been coming under direct attack, including most recently the capital’s historic Old City, where six people were killed in a suspected airstrike.
It is this seemingly indiscriminate bombing that has led rights groups to accuse the Saudis of war crimes.
But doctors say they are also seeing injuries from Houthi missiles misfired at Saudi planes. At least three patients a day, according to the head of one of Sana’s main hospitals, Dr Nasr Al Qadasi.
Many of the casualties though are not from the bombing or missiles.
In one ward, all the children were burnt after generators blew up in their homes. The Saudi blockade has left the country with no electricity, so there’s little choice but to use old and faulty generators.
The blockade is also restricting aid.
“We are in need for the basic medicine, for emergency drugs. We are suffering – if conditions continue like that I think it will be a big problem in the near future,” Dr Qadasi told Sky News.
With little fuel getting in, petrol lines reach for miles around the city. Sana’a has become a parking lot of angry drivers. It can take days to buy a maximum of 60 litres of fuel at triple the normal cost.
Every basic need, including clean water, is rationed. Urban life has become about waiting in queues. Yemen is the poorest Arab country, but the Saudi siege has now turned each day into a hunt for survival.
Schools are closed, one million people have fled their homes and rubbish has not been collected in weeks, spreading disease.
The feeling here isn’t that the outside world doesn’t know what’s happening in Yemen – it’s that they don’t care.
These conditions have deeply affected the popularity of the Houthis – yet they still control the capital while a civil war is raging in the south.
The group have vowed to continue their fight, even if it means at the end there is nothing left but violence and despair for generations to come.
Credit: Sky News
