July 9, 2020: GLAN airstrike database – Yemen in June 2020 – Struggle for the South – Hadi must go – Britain’s complicity in Saudi-led sea blockade – A doctor’s Corona diary – and more
Schwerpunkte / Key aspects
Kursiv: Siehe Teil 2 / In Italics: Look in part 2: https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-665b-yemen-war-mosaic-665b
Klassifizierung / Classification
Für wen das Thema ganz neu ist / Who is new to the subject
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
cp1a Am wichtigsten: Coronavitrus und Seuchen / Most important: Coronavirus and epidemics
cp2 Allgemein / General
cp2a Allgemein: Saudische Blockade / General: Saudi blockade
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
cp4 Flüchtlinge / Refugees
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
cp6 Separatisten und Hadi-Regierung im Südjemen / Separatists and Hadi government in Southern Yemen
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche / UN and peace talks
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
cp9 USA
cp9a USA-Iran Krise: Spannungen am Golf / US-Iran crisis: Tensions at the Gulf
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms Trade
cp13b Mercenaries / Söldner
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
cp15 Propaganda
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
cp18 Kampf um Hodeidah / Hodeidah battle
cp19 Sonstiges / Other
Klassifizierung / Classification
***
**
*
(Kein Stern / No star)
? = Keine Einschatzung / No rating
A = Aktuell / Current news
B = Hintergrund / Background
C = Chronik / Chronicle
D = Details
E = Wirtschaft / Economy
H = Humanitäre Fragen / Humanitarian questions
K = Krieg / War
P = Politik / Politics
pH = Pro-Houthi
pS = Pro-Saudi
T = Terrorismus / Terrorism
Für wen das Thema ganz neu ist / Who is new to the subject
Ältere einführende Artikel u. Überblicke für alle, die mit den Ereignissen im Jemen noch nicht vertraut sind, hier:
Yemen War: Older introductory articles, overviews, for those who are still unfamiliar with the Yemen war here:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-einfuehrende-artikel-u-ueberblicke
Neue Artikel / New articles
(* B H K)
Jemen steht vor Alptraumszenario: COVID-19. Hunger. Krieg.
COVID-19 breitet sich im kriegsgebeutelten Jemen aus, während Nahrungsmittel und Wasser immer knapper werden, die Zahl der Cholera-Fälle steigt und die Zivilbevölkerung von Bomben getroffen wird, die im Konflikt zwischen der Huthi-Bewegung und der saudi-arabisch angeführten Militärkoalition abgeworfen werden.
Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass die internationale humanitäre Hilfe in Jemen auf ein alarmierendes Tief gesunken ist. Zwei Drittel der 30 Millionen Menschen des Landes sind auf die Bereitstellung von Lebensmitteln angewiesen. Die Zahl der unterernährten Kinder im Jemen könnte um 20 Prozent steigen.
Die Teams von International Rescue Committee arbeiten unermüdlich daran, die weitere Verbreitung des Coronavirus aufzuhalten. Wir stellen Schutzausrüstung, sauberes Wasser sowie sanitäre Einrichtungen bereit und klären über COVID-19-Symptome und Präventationsmaßnahmen auf.
Hier sind acht wichtige Fakten über die Lage in Jemen:
https://de.rescue.org/artikel/jemen-steht-vor-alptraumszenario-covid-19-hunger-krieg
(* B H K)
Film: Dramatische Lage im Jemen
https://www.msn.com/de-de/video/other/dramatische-lage-im-jemen/vi-BB16nxXw?srcref=rss = https://www.puls24.at/video/dramatische-lage-im-jemen/short
(B H)
Film: Der Jemen kann nicht warten
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=349060652915506
(* B H K)
Film: Yemen crisis is mostly affecting children
As the civil war, which marks 6 years with no end in sight, and the attacks of Saudi-led coalitions cause starvation in Yemen, the children are heavily being affected by the humanitarian plight in the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxQx7FTvMVY
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
(** B K)
GLAN airstrike database
By some counts, there have been over 20,000 airstrikes since the beginning of the Saudi/UAE-led coalition’s air campaign in Yemen. A huge proportion are alleged to have destroyed civilian property and killed civilians in violation of international humanitarian law.
Since 2018 GLAN has been developing a repository of digital evidence on the Saudi/UAE-led bombing campaign in Yemen where violations of international law appear to have occurred. This resource seeks to address both the lack of coordination in evidence gathering and also bring together in a single workflow user generated digital information with evidence from private individuals (e.g. journalists, witnesses) and NGOs. Our goal is to support or make possible future legal accountability efforts for these attacks by preserving information in accordance with the highest legal standards.
Since 2018, we have been building & actively maintaining a database of Coalition airstrikes & cluster bomb attacks. This user-friendly system enables the cross-referencing of large quantities of evidence and will be available to partner organisations seeking to promote accountability in the future. It brings together key pre-existing technologies to allow online user generated content and private evidence to be stored and viewed together.
One key objective of the database is that it will grow as we recieve more information on Coalition attacks, and that, where safe to do so, it will be made available to trusted partners for use in accountability efforts. If you or your organisation would be interested to discuss the database, please contact Dearbhla Minogue on dminogue@glanlaw.org. For secure communications, we welcome the use of PGP encryption.
After lengthy consultations with other organisations who had encountered the same challenges (most prominently in the case of investigations into Syrian airstrikes), GLAN teamed up with a number of core partners to design core functionalities for the database that would be cost-effective and workable. Key features of our system include:
Open-source evidence: Preservation of online user generated audio-visual evidence is carried out using Digital Evidence Vault, a Google Chrome plug-in which downloads and stores a copy of crucial online content. This program uses distributed ledger technology (blockchain) to authoritatively time-stamp the content. GLAN also log key OSINT information from the investigations of our partner organisations, Bellingcat and Yemeni Archive.
Direct evidence: Mnemonic (Syrian Archive, Yemeni Archive) will be our partner for the preservation of directly-received material (e.g. from journalists and witnesses).
All evidence is sorted by GLAN with future legal accountability efforts in mind and to make feasible a thorough analysis of an unwieldy amount of content. The database is relational, which means that each piece of evidence is linked both to an airstrike and the source of the evidence. Where necessary, sources’ identification is coded, so that the database, if breached, would be less likely to lead to their identity being revealed.
https://www.glanlaw.org/airstrike-evidence-database-yemen
and
Observation Database
Verified videos of observations of violations
https://yemeniarchive.org/en/database
(** B K P)
Struggle for the South – The Yemen Review, June 2020
Contents
STC-Backed Forces Seize Socotra
Saudi-Announced Cease-Fire and Govt-STC Talks Fail to Halt Abyan Fighting
Commentary: The Riyadh Agreement Dilemma
Violence in the South Spreads to Shabwa
Houthis Squash Tribal Uprising in Al-Bayda, Push into Marib from the South
Frontlines Active Across the Country
Commentary: The Houthis from the Sa’ada Wars to the Saudi-Led Intervention
Another Stage-Managed Fuel Crisis in Northern Yemen
Houthis Institute Tax to Benefit Group’s Leaders and Loyalists
STC Seizes Newly-Printed Yemeni Rials
As the Virus Advances, Yemenis Adjust to New Realities
FSO Safer: Renewed Warnings of Environmental Catastrophe
Humanitarian and Human Rights Developments
Pledges to Aid UN Yemen Programs Fall Short by Nearly Half for Coming Year
Journalists Assassinated, Kidnapped and Persecuted Across Yemen
Other Humanitarian and Human Rights Developments in Brief
Yemen-Eritrea Tension Rises as Fishermen Detained, Harassed
Yemeni Embassy in Riyadh Investigates Charging Yemenis for COVID-19 Tests
Other Regional Developments in Brief
Commentary: The United Nations Security Council: From Participant to Passive Observer in Yemen
Other Developments at the UN in Brief
White House Briefs Senate on US Military Involvement in Yemen
Other US Developments in Brief
https://sanaacenter.org/publications/the-yemen-review/10258
and therefrom:
(** B P)
The Riyadh Agreement Dilemma
Commentary by Abdulghani Al-Iryani
A key obstacle to nationwide peace negotiations is the formation of a Yemeni government delegation that includes the Southern Transitional Council (STC). This was meant to be a key outcome of the Saudi-brokered Riyadh Agreement the two rival parties acceded to last year. As it stands, however, successful implementation of the Riyadh Agreement requires redeploying forces loyal to Yemeni President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi in Aden, his government’s interim capital, risking renewed bloody confrontations with STC-affiliated forces that would wreck the peace negotiations. This is the dilemma of the Riyadh Agreement.
Implementation of the Riyadh Agreement has been frustrated by disagreement on the sequencing of implementation, an issue that is often cited as the reason for scuppering the proposed 2016 Kuwait Agreement. The STC insists on appointing a governor and a chief of police for Aden before it redeploys its forces out of the city; Hadi insists on the opposite. Distrust and demonstrably bad intentions on both sides have poisoned the implementation talks. While the two sides profess compliance, they continue to take military actions that belie their rhetoric.
The Saudis, who rammed this agreement down the throat of both sides, seemed to have skipped their history lesson. Instead, they bought into the prevailing narrative that presents this conflict as one between a faction, supposedly dominated by northerners, who wish to preserve Yemeni unity, and southerners who are trying to rid themselves from northern domination and restore their old state. Pundits, meanwhile, note the competition between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. They also point out the declared target of the UAE to eliminate Islah. While valid, none of these characterizations captures the nuances of reality.
Representation of southern Yemen after the [1994] conflict was monopolized by Hadi’s group, the Zumra. The Toghma, who represented a majority of the people of the South, were largely marginalized. For years, military and security officers of the Toghma were out of work and often out of livelihoods. Domestic and international pressure forced Saleh to pass decrees to reintegrate them into the national army. Still, Saleh’s behavior from 1986 until he resigned in 2012 indicated his intentions to continually undermine the South.[12] He appointed Hadi as head of a presidential committee charged with reintegrating forcibly discharged southern officers, knowing full well that Hadi would do his utmost to obstruct its implementation to punish his former enemies. In 2001, Saleh tried to tinker with the Zumra monopoly on southern representation by courting some Al-Dhalea figures and firing one of the Zumra’s most powerful figures, then-Minister of Interior General Hussien Arab. In response, the Zumra announced a political coalition, Caucus of the Sons of Southern and Eastern Governorates, that threatened to call for southern independence. The Zumra were no more pro-unity than the Toghma, but rather had used their alliances with northern forces and the central government in an effort to marginalize their southern competitor.
This history should make it clear that the struggle for southern Yemen is not merely a political conflict – it is a conflict of identities. Southerners, especially the Toghma-affiliate STC, are doing themselves a disservice by presenting the conflict as one between the South and the North, as denying the real dynamics of the discord makes its resolution impossible. In turn, attempting to implement the Riyadh Agreement without dealing with the underlying causes of the STC-Hadi government rivalry will only complicate the situation.
Still, successful implementation of the Riyadh Agreement is seen as a prerequisite for progress toward negotiations for a nationwide cessation of hostilities.
https://sanaacenter.org/publications/analysis/10311 = https://sanaacenter.org/publications/the-yemen-review/10258
(** B P)
Hadi must go
Yemeni President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi is doing his best to prevent an end to the conflict in Yemen. Ensuring that last year’s Riyadh Agreement – meant to mend divisions with his rivals in southern Yemen – never gets implemented is only his latest venture in this regard. Hadi’s tenure has been a case study in parasitic statesmanship, in which only his amoral pursuit of riches and self-preservation has been able to rise above his ineptitude. During his presidency, now in its ninth year, he has overseen Yemen’s steady dissolution from a nation hoping to transition to democracy post-Arab Spring, to a nation fragmented by civil war and regional military intervention, to a land of warring statelets, mass suffering and despair. Enough – it is time for Hadi to go. Once this clear necessity is acknowledged by all concerned parties – in particular Saudi Arabia, his patron, the United Nations Security Council, which bestows on him international legitimacy, and the shrinking number of Yemeni actors who ally with him for lack of better options – then the conversation can shift to how to replace him.
At a basic level, Hadi never had the qualities associated with successful leadership. Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh appointed Hadi his deputy following the 1994 civil war because the latter – showing little in the way of managerial competence, decisiveness, charisma or vision – posed little threat to Saleh’s rule.
Hadi’s claim to the presidency is also tenuous. Following the 2011 Yemeni uprising, the internationally-backed Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative facilitated Saleh’s exit from office and Hadi’s ascent, with the latter’s popular mandate of a two-year transitional term affirmed in a one-candidate ‘election’ in 2012.
Hadi’s two-year term was extended for one year in 2014. Following the Houthi forces’ invasion of the capital in September of that year, Hadi’s flight south and eventually to Riyadh, and the regional military intervention in March 2015, his term as president became indefinite and unaccountable to the Yemeni people.
Hadi’s legitimacy to head Yemen’s ‘internationally recognized government’ is almost wholly conferred by the UNSC and the international community through UNSC Resolution 2216, which recognizes him as the legitimate president of Yemen in the wake of the Houthi takeover of Sana’a. His legitimacy is entirely detached from his performance as a head of state. Riyadh, meanwhile, for the most part sees Hadi as useful for providing international legal cover for its military campaign in Yemen, and little else. This lack of accountability has allowed Hadi’s presidency to metastasize into a government in exile that serves primarily as a vehicle for corruption.
Hadi’s small inner circle, made up of his sons and powerful figures from his home governorate of Abyan, are far from the only figures profiting from the conflict, but given their placement atop the government hierarchy, the scope and scale of their corruption are exceptional. The continuity of this graft is dependent on Hadi maintaining the presidency, while at the same time any negotiated end to the war will likely require Hadi to transition out of power. Knowing this, the president and his circle’s vested interests are tied to the war continuing, removing any incentive to compromise during negotiations, whether with the Houthis or nominal allies in the anti-Houthi coalition.
Efforts to put Yemen on a better path politically must start without delay, and the change should begin at the top. The main parties within the anti-Houthi coalition should realize the president is beholden to them, not the other way around, and recognize the Yemeni government can be stronger without him – by Sanaa Center
https://sanaacenter.org/publications/the-yemen-review/10306
(** B K P)
‘Paralysing a nation’: Evidence emerges of Royal Navy’s complicity in Saudi-led sea blockade of Yemen
The Saudi-led coalition has received British training on naval tactics that could be used for blockading Yemen, an embargo which UN experts have described as ‘unlawful’. Amnesty International says the new information is ‘deeply concerning’.
The Royal Navy’s role in the world’s worst humanitarian disaster has emerged after freedom of information requests by Declassified found extensive evidence of UK support for the Saudi-led sea blockade of Yemen.
Aid agencies have repeatedly condemned the naval embargo on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, which UN experts have described as violating international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch says the blockade has “severely restricted the flow of food, fuel, and medicine to civilians” during the last five years.
Days after Maurer’s warning in August 2015, the Saudi-led coalition bombed Hodeidah, one of Yemen’s largest ports, and destroyed a series of cranes used for unloading vital food aid. Save the Children said the port bombing was “the final straw” for innocent civilians.
Despite this attack, Declassified has found that in September 2015 – the month after the Hodeidah docks were hit – a naval officer from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was invited to HMS Collingwood near Portsmouth in southern England to attend a four-week course teaching skills that could be used for blockading Yemen.
Sessions included “counter-smuggling”, “board and search” and using aircraft to support an “Exclusive Economic Zone” (EEZ) – the area of water that extends 200 miles off a country’s coast containing its fishing and resource rights.
The UAE has one of the most powerful navies in the region and has played a key role in the sea blockade. At the start of the conflict it built a military base at Assab on the coast of Eritrea, a highly repressive country which the Economist has dubbed “Africa’s North Korea”. The move gave the UAE navy access to a deep-water port directly overlooking Yemen
Then in December 2015, the son of the Crown Prince of Bahrain – another key country in the coalition – graduated from the Royal Navy’s officer academy in Dartmouth, south-west England. His father, Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, watched the graduation ceremony as a guest of honour.
Some sources suggest that Bahrain’s small navy has contributed to the sea blockade and Bahraini soldiers are known to have died fighting in Yemen. UK ministers are currently forbidden by a court ruling from allowing new arms exports to Bahrain for possible use in Yemen.
Al-Khalifa’s visit to Dartmouth was followed in March 2016 by Royal Navy officers spending a week in Saudi Arabia training 15 sailors how to “board and search” vessels in “international waters or territorial seas”.
According to a Royal Navy brochure, the course focused on “reducing unnecessary risks to the Boarding Team while maximising use of effective law enforcement”. Topics included detention procedures and “high risk search techniques” as well as international law.
The Royal Navy then provided an “Exclusive Economic Zone Protection Officer course” to Saudi and UAE personnel between September 2016 and March 2017, followed by mobile sea training with the Saudi Navy.
Andrew Smith from Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) told Declassified: “This training is symptomatic of the toxic and dangerous relationship between the UK Government and the Saudi-led forces. The UK should be condemning the atrocities that have been inflicted by the Saudi naval forces and their coalition partners. It definitely should not be arming, training and conspiring with those that are responsible for such a callous act.”
By this stage [2017], the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights and sanctions, Idriss Jazairy, was warning that the blockade was “paralysing a nation” with seven million people facing famine. Jazairy said that the naval blockade amounted to “an unlawful unilateral coercive measure under international law”.
The Royal Navy continued working with coalition members before and after this warning, including with Bahrain where it has a permanent base. Between 2015 and 2018, British marines held three military exercises in Bahrain — known as “Pearl Dagger” — where they spent nearly a month at a time training their counterparts in live firing, close-quarter marksmanship and battle tactics.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei from the Bahrain Institute for Rights & Democracy (BIRD) called the training “shameful and abhorrent”. He commented: “In return for providing the UK with a naval base in Bahrain, the government is facilitating an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” in Yemen.
The UAE navy received lessons in how to “board and search” vessels during 2019, and a UAE naval officer attended an “international electronic warfare manager” course at HMS Collingwood. Meanwhile nine Saudis along with cadets from Bahrain, UAE and Egypt attended the Royal Navy’s officer academy at Dartmouth.
Nearby on England’s south coast at Lympstone, an unspecified number of commandos from the UAE went on the 60-week Royal Marines young officer course, which included training on “amphibious and helicopter operations”.
In addition to delivering courses and military equipment, the Royal Navy has five sailors – including a Lieutenant Commander – on loan permanently to the Saudi Navy.
Declassified has found that three of the team are listed as instructors, meaning that they can provide full-time training at the King Fahd Naval Academy at Jubail on the Gulf coast, where they are stationed. Britain’s largest arms company, BAE Systems, also has a contract to train the Saudi navy.
Amnesty’s UK security programme director Oliver Feeley-Sprague said: “Whether it’s the Saudi or Emirati militaries, or police forces in Hong Kong or the USA, the UK is dangerously cavalier over who it sells its arms and security equipment to, while providing a range of training to military and security forces with extremely troubling human rights records – by Phil Miller
and a shorter report: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200707-uk-complicit-in-devastating-unlawful-saudi-led-blockade-of-yemen/
(** B H)
How coronavirus hit Aden: A Yemeni doctor’s diary
As COVID-19 courses through Yemen, taking an unknown number of victims in a country already decimated by war, Dr Ammar Derwish, 32, has been documenting the toll on his community.
He lives in Aden, where one of his first jobs was treating trauma patients in the early months of the now more than five-year conflict, when the southern port city was besieged in the fight between the internationally recognised government and Houthi rebels. Now his home city has been hit so hard by coronavirus that the UN believes a quarter of its population may be infected, and hospitals have had to turn away patients with symptoms. So, between jobs and not associated with any hospital, caring for his own community has become Dr Derwish’s full-time unpaid occupation. Shortly after Aden’s first COVID-19 cases were announced in late April, he purchased supplies with his own money and began making house calls to sick neighbours and friends. As he fasted for Ramadan, he himself fell ill, and friends and relatives succumbed to the virus. But Dr Derwish continued to treat the sick, taking meticulous notes on his phone – notes that became this diary.
AD: Since COVID-19 began in China and then went on to attack a lot of other countries, I remained in a state of denial, even though I took some minor precautionary measures. I’m not hiding that. Seeing all the other countries falling down when faced with it, when my country still had no cases, made me think “Oh, maybe it forgot about us, as always”, but this time it was a good thing for Yemen to be forgotten. I thought maybe Yemen’s isolation would save us. Or that perhaps we have better immune systems because we deal with lots of other diseases that people in Western countries have probably never even heard of.
One of the things that made me hesitant to believe what was happening around the world is that most of the information regarding the disease is coming from governments, both here and in the West. It was coming from governments that we in Yemen lost trust in a long time ago.
I never expected to see what is happening right now, here in Aden. The situation is insane. People are falling down, one by one, like dominoes. Especially the old and middle-aged. It starts with fever, then very quickly comes difficulty breathing, and then sudden death. People are still afraid, and they hate to hear the name of the virus. Even some medical staff won’t say it in public, like it’s cursed.
Many people in these notes died. Others survived, and said to death: “Stop. I still have a life to live.”
I never thought I would write something like this, and I did not plan for it to be published. I never thought that my notes would make a difference to anyone. I still believe they might not. But I want to share this experience. Maybe some people care?
3 May 2020
On the tenth day of Ramadan, a Sunday, my younger brother Osama plays a match in the Ramadan football league, on the beach. The match ends around 6pm. Osama feels a little tired and has an intermittent light dry cough. He sleeps for a few hours and feels better, but I still think he should rest, so I go out to buy groceries – one of Osama’s chores in our family.
While I’m out shopping, I see my neighbour and close family friend Hussain, who tells me his father, Wagdi, is feeling sick and needs help. I go over to their house. Inside, Wagdi has a big plastic bag full of medication another doctor has prescribed. I take a look at the results of some blood tests he has done, and everything looks normal. I conclude he probably has the flu, or maybe he’s exaggerating a bit: the “man flu”, as a friend of mine calls it.
To understand how we got here – before I started writing these notes – let’s go back in time a little bit.
It was on the fifth day of Ramadan, 28 April, the day before the first official cases of coronavirus were announced in Aden, that Wagdi began to feel unwell. He is 56 and has diabetes and high blood pressure. He saw a doctor, complaining of fever, fatigue, and some muscle aches in his lower limbs. The doctor thought Wagdi might have some sort of mosquito-borne infection, like chikungunya or dengue fever [both are fairly common in Yemen, and Aden has recently had flash floods so there are lots of mosquitoes around].
Then, on the eighth day of Ramadan, 1 May, Osama played football. After the game finished, he went to break his fast at his friend Ahmed’s house in al-Mansoura, a different district of Aden. While they were eating, Ahmed told the others he had been feeling sick for the first five to seven days of Ramadan, with general weakness, tiredness, and a fever. He said he was ok now, but that his dad wasn’t feeling well.
When he got back, Osama described al-Mansoura, which is more crowded than Buraiqa, where we live in Aden. Al-Mansoura has lots of private hospitals and clinics. “It’s really scary,” he said. “I think it’s Yemen’s Wuhan. Everyone is walking around with IV lines in their arms. There’s water in the streets [from the floods] and sewage. The mosquitoes are the size of birds. It is a very infected city. It feels infected. It smells infected. It looks infected.”
The next day, Ahmed took his father to al-Amal Medical Centre, which is usually for cancer treatment. The government has turned it into a hospital for COVID-19 patients.
Unfortunately, his father died a few hours later.
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/special-report/2020/07/07/coronavirus-aden-yemen-doctor-diary
cp1a Am wichtigsten: Coronavirus und Seuchen / Most important: Coronavirus and epidemics
Siehe / Look at cp1
(* B H)
Yemen cemetery struggles to dig enough graves as coronavirus spreads
In Yemen’s Taiz, cemetery supervisor Dabwan al-Makhlaafi had to hire mechanical diggers to keep up with demand for new graves at a cemetery originally built for fallen government fighters, as coronavirus spreads through the war-torn country. “Workers were not able to keep up with the digging, burial and finishing of the graves,” said Makhlaafi, a former member of parliament.
The burials at Taiz illustrate the heavy toll that the pandemic has wrought on Yemen, which lacks adequate testing capabilities and health infrastructure.
Since al-Sharaabi died in May, two more coronavirus centres opened in Aden and the MSF hospital said its patient numbers are starting to fall.
But they worry about the situation in harder to reach areas.
Bad roads, frontlines and fighting makes it hard for many to reach help and to get a clear picture of the outbreak, MSF representative Julienne Vergez said.
(* B H)
Film: Coronavirus: The doctors on Yemen's front line
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-53342668/coronavirus-the-doctors-on-yemen-s-front-line
(A H)
WB provides Yemen with $51 mln to fight locust, Covid-19
The first US$ 26.9 million worth project is meant to counter ramifications of Covid-19 pandemic and will be implemented by the ministry of health in cooperation with the WHO, Dr. Najib al-Oaij added in remarks carried by Asharq Al-awsat.
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18329.html
(A H)
Yemen records 21 Covid-19 infections, 1,318 in total
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18331.html
and also http://en.adenpress.news/news/23506
(A H)
13 new cases of coronavirus reported, 1,297 in total
http://en.adenpress.news/news/23499
(A H P)
US-Saudi Aggression Stopped Medicines to Fight Covid-19 from Muscat, Complicity of UN
Member of the National Negotiating Delegation, Abdulmalik Al-Ajri, revealed, Tuesday, that the US-Saudi aggression stopped transportation of therapeutic drugs to combat Covid-19 and with the complicity of the United Nations.
"Tons of medicines and medical supplies needed to combat Covid-19 are still stuck in Muscat, despite repeated promises that only a portion of it was transferred more than a month ago", Al-Ajri said.
Al-Ajri confirmed that therapeutic drugs were stopped in Muscat by more than a month without any justification by the aggression, and with the complicity and coverage of the United Nations
(* B H)
Film: How will Yemen cope with Covid-19?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUs4iXX2gkY
(A H)
13 new cases of coronavirus reported, 1,297 in total
http://en.adenpress.news/news/23499
(B H)
WHO: Yemen Corona situation
https://covid19.who.int/region/emro/country/ye
My comment: All these figures are void.
(A H P)
[Sanaa gov.] Health Ministry succeeds in reducing repercussions of Coronavirus "COVID 19"
The Ministry of Public Health and Population succeed to reduce the repercussions of the Coronavirus- (COVID-19)and reduce citizens' concerns about the virus.
The Ministry adopted a strategy of "neither intimidation nor understatement" in dealing with the pandemic to raise the morale of citizens against the epidemic that swept the world and caused major injuries and deaths.
Yemen pursued a strategy and a special vision commensuration with the situation and living conditions it is experiencing, benefiting from the experiences of other countries in dealing with this pandemic, away from the international intimidation taken by most countries in tightening measures that weakened the morale of its citizens and created a state of fear that was more deadly than the disease itself.
The Minister of Public Health and Population Dr. Taha Al-Mutawakkil told Saba that the ministry was keen that the measures taken should be in keeping with the living conditions, especially in light of the continued aggression, the siege and the stoppage of salaries.
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3101978.htm
My comment: This minister is a failure on two legs.
(A H)
19 new cases of coronavirus reported, 1,284 in total
http://en.adenpress.news/news/23487
(A H)
A free medical center for fever treatment opens in Aden
https://a24na.com/portal/index.php/arab24-stories/yemen/item/19706-2020-07-06-18-44-14
(* B H)
Yemen faces spread of COVID-19 'with no health care system at all'
“There seems to be a [donor] fatigue over the situation in Yemen,” says Afrah Nasser, a researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Every government is just dealing with their own internal humanitarian situation in light of the COVID-19 crisis. So Yemen is just being forgotten all over again.”
Nasser, herself a Yemeni working in exile, has watched her country disintegrate since fighting spread throughout the nation in 2015.
“In the course of the war, we have witnessed systematic targeting of health facilities across the country,” she said.
The Facebook posts Nasser sees from people inside Yemen provide a more alarming picture. She said she suspects far more people are dying from the virus than official numbers portray.
“I don't like to exaggerate,” Nasser said. “But I see that there are about 10 or 20 people dying daily. People are expressing the pain and despair through those social media posts … There are funerals happening on a daily basis. There is one graveyard in Sana’a that closed its doors, saying with a big poster on its door that the graveyard is fully occupied.”
In Aden, Yemen’s southern port city, gravediggers can not keep up with the demand for burials.
Fatima Saleh, a civil society activist living in Sana’a, has also noted the rise in death announcements on Facebook.
“I’m seeing condolences to our friends, to friends of friends, on a daily basis,” she said. “It's crazy. I mean, we've been in a war for, like, six years, but we've never seen something like this.”
Preventative measures observed widely throughout the developed world have not yet been adopted in Saleh’s neighborhood in the Yemeni capital.
“Yesterday, I went on an errand,” Saleh says. “I was in the shop and many people were not social distancing … And also, many people are not wearing masks or any kind of protection.”
Hisham Al-Omeisy, a Yemeni political analyst living in Cairo with close ties to friends and family in Yemen, says the country is not doing enough to protect its people from the virus.
“All the shops are open. All the roads are open. Even the big areas, where a lot of people crowd, are open,” Al-Omeisy said – by Stephen Snyder
https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-06-04/yemen-faces-spread-covid-19-no-health-care-system-all
(* B H)
Yemen COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Snapshot - As of 4 July 2020
As of 4 July, the number of reported confirmed COVID-19 cases in Yemen had reached 1,252 with 338 associated deaths and 539 recoveries. Men constitute 76 per cent of all reported cases and 57 per cent of recorded deaths are aged 45 or above, including 30 per cent aged 60+. In Hadramaut, 409 COVID-19 cases were reported, by far the highest number, with 150 associated deaths and 81 recoveries. This is followed by Aden (267 cases, 32 deaths and 194 recoveries) and Taizz (247 cases, 63 deaths and 114 recoveries), which have recorded higher recovery and lower death rates than Hadramaut.
The ongoing fuel crisis continues to threaten access to food, hospital operations and water supplies which are fuel-dependent and crucial to preventing virus transmission and to the response, and presents a further obstacle to people seeking treatment. The cost of the minimum food basket has risen by as much as 35 per cent in some areas since the outbreak of COVID-19 while the Yemeni rial depreciates. Aid agencies continue to work
(A H)
Direct Relief Delivers Critical Oxygen and ICU Medicine for Yemen’s Covid-19 Patients
Direct Relief has airlifted a large supply of life-saving medicine and medical equipment to Yemen, arriving as the Covid-10 pandemic spreads through a country whose health systems have been deeply disrupted by five years of civil war.
The Direct Relief shipment includes 20 of Direct Relief’s ICU Critical Supply Modules, each with medications and supplies selected to treat up to 500 critically ill Covid-19 patients, along with 150 oxygen concentrators, five ventilators, and large quantities of personal protective equipment.
(* B H)
IOM Yemen COVID-19 Response Update (14 - 27 June 2020)
COVID-19 is rapidly spreading across Yemen, with Hadramaut, Aden and Taizz governorates reporting the highest number of cases. However, COVID-19 testing remains extremely limited — only six labs across the country have testing capacity. The limited testing capacity, along with lack of access to health facilities and the associated stigma with seeking treatment for COVID-19, hides the true impact and spread of the virus. The affect on displaced and migrant communities, who already face challenges accessing critical basic and health services, is severe. As Yemen grapples with community-wide transmission, the risks of rapid transmission are especially high in the over 1,700 crowded informal IDP settlements. Seventy per cent of Yemen’s population lack access to soap and 60 per cent do not have access to enough water.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/iom-yemen-covid-19-response-update-14-27-june-2020
cp2 Allgemein / General
(* A K P)
Interactive Map of Yemen War
(* A K)
MILITARY SITUATION IN YEMEN ON JULY 7, 2020 (MAP UPDATE)
https://southfront.org/military-situation-in-yemen-on-july-7-2020-map-update/
MILITARY SITUATION IN YEMEN ON JULY 6, 2020 (MAP UPDATE)
https://southfront.org/military-situation-in-yemen-on-july-6-2020-map-update/
(* B H K P)
Film: Yemen: A History of Conflict - Narrated by David Strathairn - Full Episode
Since 2015, Yemen has been consumed by an intractable, multiparty war that has created a devastating humanitarian crisis and brought millions to the brink of starvation. GREAT DECISIONS investigates the origins of the fighting, examines the motivations of foreign actors, and asks what steps the international community might take to resolve the conflict.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpPpXM7hSXk
My comment: This film is spoiled by US propaganda.
(* B K P)
Eine kleine Insel wird zum strategischen Spielball
Die Insel Sokotra, die zu Jemen gehört, ist dünn besiedelt mit einer spektakulären Naturlandschaft. Das Unglück dieses Paradieses ist seine strategische Lage am Horn von Afrika. Ihretwegen haben es die Ölscheichs der Arabischen Emirate auf die kleine Insel abgesehen.
Auf die Hilfslieferungen folgten die Soldaten. «Die Emirate bauten einen Stützpunkt für ihre Armee», sagt McKernan. «Schon seit dann tun die Emiratis auf Sokotra eigentlich, was sie wollen», sagt sie. Im Grunde sei es egal, wer im Gouverneurspalast sitze.
Die Korrespondentin besuchte Sokotra vor zwei Jahren, nach einer abenteuerlichen Überfahrt auf einem Fischkutter. Dort angekommen sah sie als erste ausländische Journalistin die emiratische Armeepräsenz mit eigenen Augen.
«Sokotra ist eine Art Kronjuwel in der emiratischen Regionalstrategie», sagt Bethan McKernan. Tatsächlich verfolgt das kleine aber unverschämt reiche Ölscheichtum seit einigen Jahren eine immer aggressivere Aussenpolitik. Sie trägt die Handschrift von Mohammed bin Zeyed, dem starken Mann von Abu Dhabi und Thronfolger der Emirate.
Seit dem Arabischen Frühling investiert Mohammed bin Zeyed Milliarden, um in der arabischen Welt Protestbewegungen niederzuhalten. Insbesondere die islamistischen Muslimbrüder sieht er als grosse Feinde für die Stabilität. Wohl in der Angst, sie könnten Revolten anstossen und so das Modell der Alleinherrschaft, wie er es vertritt, unterminieren.
Entsprechend setzen die Emirate in den Konflikten der Region häufig auf Warlords und autoritäre Regime, von Sudan über Ägypten bis Libyen ging das so. Als Rivalen der Emiratis rüsten dann häufig die Türkei und Katar die Gegenseite hoch.
Die südjemenitische Küste verläuft parallel zur wichtigsten Seefahrtroute für die Emirate, vom Golf von Aden ins Rote Meer, dem sogenannten «Tor der Tränen». Über ihre Verbündeten kontrollieren die Emirate bereits den Hafen von Aden. Die Insel Sokotra ist wie das Gegenstück zu Aden, draussen im arabischen Meer.
«Sokotra ist mit seiner Armeebasis der perfekte Standort, um das Nadelöhr für die Schifffahrt zu überwachen», sagt Bethan McKernan. Wie ein vertäuter Flugzeugträger liegt dieser Garten Eden da auf der Tankerroute zum «Tor der Tränen» – von Philipp Scholkmann
(* B K P)
Film, Webinar: Rethinking Approaches to Peacebuilding in Yemen (Online Event, 7th July 2020)
Crisis Group's major new report, "Rethinking Peace in Yemen", is based on a year and a half of extensive field research inside Yemen, and more than 100 in-person and telephone interviews with Yemeni actors, and regional and international stakeholders. The report maps out shifts in Yemen’s political geography over five years of conflict, recommends that policy makers rethink the requirements for peace and argues that a wider range of actors need to be included in UN-led talks. It calls for a more limited agreement to end the war focused on securing a ceasefire and the resumption of services, while avoiding too rapid a recentralisation of power in the capital.
Speakers: Peter Salisbury, Senior Analyst for Yemen at International Crisis Group; Nadwa Dawsari, Non-resident Fellow at the Middle East Institute; Amb. Barbara Bodine, Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University and Director of Institute for the Study of Diplomacy; Moderator: April Longley Alley, Deputy Program Director, Middle East and North Africa at International Crisis Group
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yZnLfe7Qh0
(* B K P)
US, UK Must Suspend Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia
The US and the UK governments continue to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia even though it’s a morally bankrupt and illegal choice to prop up the Wahhabi regime in its unlawful war on Yemen.
The UK is to resume selling new weapons to Saudi Arabia despite war crimes committed by the Sau
No doubt, British weapons sales to Saudi Arabia are a serious violation of International Law and Arms Trade Treaty. They contribute to serious human rights violations, where the Saudi-led bombing campaign is systematically hitting civilian targets in contravention of the rules of war.
Just like Britain, the United States has also licensed billions of dollars of arms sales to Riyadh since Saudis and the mere extras entered the illegal war on Yemen. The Saudis are leading the brutal military operation in which US and UK-supplied aircraft, bombs and missiles are playing a major role. The British and American military officials are also in the command and control centre for Saudi airstrikes.
One side-effect of the chaos resulting from this criminal campaign is that the local franchises of Al-Qaeda and ISIL are now thriving as never before. Worse yet, the Saudi-led campaign has claimed thousands of lives and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe amid the coronavirus pandemic.
As a consequence, international aid organisations are calling on the UK and US governments to suspend their illegal arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Some have even launched formal legal challenges in courts to halt the sales on those grounds. But to no avail.
The response from the British and American governments has been thoroughly cynical. They deny any evidence of Saudi violations, simply ignoring the world’s leading human rights organisations, who have been documenting such crimes since 2015.
This is not surprising. For decades, the regime changers have provided arms to their regional vassal capable of being used for external aggression and internal repression. They play lip service to the UN Charter and the global Arms Trade Treaty, and expect not to be held to account.
The Anglo-American military alliance with Riyadh shows British and American complicity in the horrors of Yemen. It is the most overt manifestation of the criminal relationship between London, Washington and Riyadh in recent years. The worst part is that they refuse to change this criminal course even during the devastating coronavirus pandemic.
https://en.farsnews.ir/newstext.aspx?nn=13990418001099
(* A K P)
Pompeo says U.S. seized Iranian weapons on way to Houthi rebels in Yemen
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Wednesday that U.S. and partner forces seized a boat in June carrying Iranian weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen as he renewed his call for the U.N. Security Council to extend an arms embargo on Iran.
“The Security Council must extend the arms embargo on Iran to prevent further conflict in the region,” Pompeo told a State Department news conference. “No serious person can possibly believe Iran will use any weapon it receives for peaceful ends.”
Pompeo is leading a U.S. drive to persuade the Security Council to extend the embargo due to expire in mid-October under the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal from which the United States withdrew in 2018.
He took his appeal directly to the council last week, with an address to its 15 members. But veto-wielding Russia and China signaled their opposition to an extension.
At his news conference, Pompeo said that U.S. and unidentified “partner” forces interdicted a vessel off Yemen’s coast on June 28 that was carrying Iranian arms to Houthi rebels.
“Iran is not abiding by the U.N. arms embargo that is due to expire in less than four months now,” he said.
The weapons, he said, included 200 rocket-propelled grenades, more than 1,700 assault rifles, 21 surface-to-air and land-attack missiles, several anti-tank missiles “and other advanced weapons and missiles.”
Film: https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1280869402011934720
My comment: This could be true – or a US propaganda lie, just to put pressure on the UNSC in the case of an anti-Iranian arms embargo.
(* B K P)
Navigating Naval Chokepoints in the Age of COVID: The Bab-Al-Mandab and Other Dangerous Straits?
Many of the great navies, maritime fleets, and governments navigate the littorals' fraught waters along the Bab-al-Mandab strait (often known as the "BAM").
The BAM situation reflects and illustrates many of the competing cross-currents at play in the global straits and littorals that decision-makers must navigate. There are three categories to examine: Military – the regional conflicts, and activities of the great powers; Economic – the impact of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE)s on local ports; and finally, Socio-Political – COVID-19’s effect on failing states and the attendant exacerbated threats they pose to the region.
Military
Yemen: Despite multiple efforts to end the war in Yemen, a resolution seems distant. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) publicly claims that it is involved in Yemen to counter malign Iranian influence. Thus far, it has been unable to extricate itself, though it may be pursuing a strategy of keeping Yemen weak to extend its influence on the peninsula.[1] While the Houthis are too independent to be seen purely as a catspaw of Iran, there is no doubt that Iran has assisted the Houthis to harm its regional rival.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has largely withdrawn from Yemen, having apparently concluded that the military, economic, and diplomatic costs of supporting the KSA had grown too high;[2] though it continues to maintain the port of Mukalla that it seized from AQAP in 2015, as a base for counterterrorism operations[3] Keeping the city allows it to exert influence in the interior as well as in the Gulf of Aden.[4] Southern Yemen also has Yemen’s oil and gas fields, and while the war has shuttered production, export to Asia will more likely run through a stable South managed by Emiratis rather than to the Red Sea through the Houthis.[5]
The UAE and KSA have divergent interests regarding the Southern Transition Council (STC), which declared independence for the South
Economic Interests
It has been argued that large corporations are exerting growing global influence as their interests compete with those of nation-states.[12] But at the same time, several countries are using their SOEs as tools of their national policy to promote their own state's advantage and constrain those of their rivals. These SOEs seek their own economic advantage as well.
Dubai Ports World (DP World):Nominally DP World is an independent publicly-traded company, but in reality, its opaque ownership structure obscures the fact that its majority ownership appears to be the Emirati ruling families, with the largest shareholder being the ruler of Dubai and UAE’s Prime Minister.[13] DP World is one of the world’s largest terminal operating companies, managing operations in 82 ports in 40 countries.[14] The UAE has long had diplomatic, and trading interests in the Horn of Africa and has increased its role over the past decade as exemplified by its role in the Eritrean-Ethiopian peace agreement.[15] Since the 1990s, DP World has supported UAE diplomacy by pursuing ventures in the region spanning several states.
Ports operated by DP World along with Emirati military bases form a strategic ring around the BAM. In 2017, UAE signed a $442 million agreement to enhance the port of Berbera in Somaliland, to be operated by DP World, and to be used by the Emirati navy
Socio-Political
The impact of COVID-19 on the Global South is likely to be massive and wide-ranging.
Conclusion
The BAM serves as a cautionary microcosm for many of the factors that are already present in the straits and littorals, and which are likely to continue to increase in their salience for policymakers, militaries and businesses. At a minimum decision-makers will need to consider the regimes and non-state actors with proximity to the chokepoint and evaluate their ability to influence navigation of the littoral; the activities of Great Power actors on the scene or in the shadows such as China through its Belt and Road, or Iranian support to its proxies; and the role of commercial power-brokers, particularly SOEs.
Understanding these trends, as well as considering the means to address their impact, will be essential to safely navigate these key geographic connectors in the global commons – by Christopher D. Booth
(B K P)
Risky Saudi-Houthi escalation: Russian paper
The new escalation between the Houthi group and Saudi Arabia implies deep risks in Yemen where the Kingdom is leading a military coalition, Izvestia has reported.
Saudi Arabia has declared resumption of the military operation in Yemen after being under missile and drone attack fired by Houthis, the two authors wrote, as Saudi officials saying the Houthis "surpassed the red line" by targeting the capital and civilian sites.
The Saudi air defenses failed to intercept most of the drones that attacked the Kingdom, Anton Lavrov and Roman Chrystol added.
The Houthi attacks lacked precision, the Russian paper quoted informed sources as saying.
"We are seeing a speedy development of Houthi offensive means," a military expert told Izvestia.
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18306.html
(* B P)
No resolution to prevent risks of abandoned tanker in Yemen
Experts have said there is no resolution in sight for resolving the risks of an abandoned floating storage and offloading facility (FSO), loaded with an estimated 1.1million barrels of oil, currently caught in between the Saudi-Yemen conflict and civil war. There are concerns that the vessel could explode or create a massive pollution event.
Sophia Bellas, analyst at Dryad Global, told SAS that the political situation is creating difficulties in resolving the issue. “Unfortunately, with Houthi units and the Saudi-led coalition locked in conflict on an on/off basis, there is just not the diplomatic breathing space for now to deal with this,” said Bellas. “What would change this is if a ceasefire could be implemented and hold into the longer term, but so far in Yemen this has not been forthcoming”.
The United Nations (UN) have made various attempts to negotiate with the Houthi rebels for access to the FSO. “It is being used as a bargaining chip by the Houthis, which is extremely short-sighted as an oil spill will damage the Red Sea and hence their own interests,” Hans Tino Hansen CEO Risk Intelligence told SAS.
The Houthi rebels want to sell the oil onboard the FSO to fund their campaign at market value said Hansen, which they estimate to be around USD40 million. “The strategy is short-sighted as the potential outcome for the Red Sea and the economy connected to the Red Sea, including fishing, is many times worse than the USD40 million, if it is possible to quantify fully the total damages in the long term,” said Hansen.
Lars Bergqvist, maritime security advisor LB Marine Consultancy, said that the cargo onboard the FSO Safer is divided into different tanks and due to the condition onboard the crude oil will most likely start leaking out. “The crude oil will be seeping out, not an instant spill like in the case of a grounding. If the seeping of oil starts, the pressure on the international community will be immense, and we will certainly see some action,” he said.
https://safetyatsea.net/news/2020/no-resolution-to-prevent-risks-of-abandoned-tanker-in-yemen/
My comment: NO, Safer isn’t “being used as a bargaining chip by the Houthis”, both sides equally do it. If the “international Community” really would be interested in solving this problem, they would let the Houthis sell the crude and in some way recompensate the Hadi government.
and
(A P)
Crude leak from decaying terminal off Yemen could seriously affect Red Sea marine environment, US
Any crude leak from the decaying Safer Floating Storage and Offloading Terminal could have a serious effect on the marine environment along the Red Sea coastline, US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has said.
The Houthis have prevented UN experts from accessing the terminal to inspect and repair it, he said in a press conference in Washington on Wednesday.
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18321.html
Film: https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1280868913077784578
My comment: The US is an anti-Houthi warring party in Yemen. When Pompeo is speaking about Yemen, it’s propaganda.
(* B P)
Conservative sites like Newsmax and Washington Examiner have published Middle East hot takes from “experts” who are actually fake personas pushing propaganda.
Unfortunately for the outlets who published his articles and the readers who believed them, Raphael Badani does not exist.
His profile photos are stolen from the blog of an unwitting San Diego startup founder. His LinkedIn profile, which described him as a graduate of George Washington and Georgetown, is equally fictitious.
Badani is part of a network of at least 19 fake personas that has spent the past year placing more than 90 opinion pieces in 46 different publications. The articles heaped praise on the United Arab Emirates and advocated for a tougher approach to Qatar, Turkey, Iran and its proxy groups in Iraq and Lebanon.
Following this article’s publication, the Washington Examiner removed its article written by “Badani,” leaving only an editor’s note: “This op-ed has been removed after an investigation into its provenance and authorship.”
On Monday, Twitter suspended Badani’s account along with 15 others after The Daily Beast shared the results of its investigation into the network for violating the company’s “policies on platform manipulation and spam.”
“This vast influence operation highlights the ease with which malicious actors can exploit the identity of real people, dupe international news outlets, and have propaganda of unknown provenance legitimized through reputable media,” Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar who first noticed suspicious posts by members of the network, told The Daily Beast. “It’s not just fake news we need to be wary of, but fake journalists.”
The network’s spree of hot takes targeted a range of publications and placed articles critical of Qatar and supportive of tougher sanctions on Iran in conservative North American outlets like Human Events and The Post Millennial, founded by conservative writer Andy Ngo, as well as Israeli and Middle Eastern newspapers like The Jerusalem Post and Al Arabiya, and Asian newspapers like the South China Morning Post.
Tying the network together is a series of shared behavioral patterns. The personas identified by The Daily Beast were generally contributors to two linked sites, The Arab Eye and Persia Now; had Twitter accounts created in March or April 2020; presented themselves as political consultants and freelance journalists mostly based in European capitals; lied about their academic or professional credentials in phony LinkedIn accounts; used fake or stolen avatars manipulated to defeat reverse image searches; and linked to or amplified each others’ work.
The earliest posts from personas in the network date back to July 2019
The personas in the network used a mixture of stolen or AI-generated avatars and fake biographies to make them seem more plausible.
The “Raphael Badani” Twitter account used Barry Dadon, a real San Diego businessman and startup founder, as a source for its profile photos. Without his knowledge or consent, the account owner took a photo from Dadon’s blog for a Twitter profile photo and stole a picture from the Facebook page of Dadon’s wife for the Badani Newsmax columnist page.
“Mikael Virtanen,” a fake Finnish businessman who wrote about the Middle East for the Jewish News Service, stole his avatar from a free image database. Other avatars were stolen from a Vietnam analyst at a Singapore financial consulting firm and a California insurance agent.
All of the stolen avatars were mirror image reversed and cropped from their originals, making them difficult to find through common Google reverse image searches – by Adam Rawnsley
and
(A P)
Pro-Trump Site Decides to Stand By Op-Ed Even After It Was Revealed to Be Written By Fake Person
The conservative website Human Events acknowledged on Tuesday that last year it had published an op-ed slamming Qatar’s role in Middle East politics that was apparently written by a fake person. But then, in its editor’s note on the fraudulently-authored piece, Human Events explained that it still stands by the op-ed even if it has no idea who actually wrote it.
(B P)
[Sanaa gov.] Ministry of Interior: Narcotics Brought into Yemen on UAE, Saudi Armored Vehicles
The Ministry of Interior spokesman, Brigadier Abdul-Khaleq Al-Ajri, confirmed today, Monday, that confiscated narcotic drugs are coming from abroad with facilitation from the US-Saudi forces on the borders.
Brigadier Al-Ajri told Almasirah that the forces of the aggression are linked to drug traffickers inside Yemen. "some of the narcotic drugs were smuggled into Yemen on UAE and Saudi armored vehicles", he added.
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=13848
(B P)
[Hadi gov.] Yemen minister: Iran fishing boats violated Socotra territorial waters
A fleet of Iranian fishing boats have entered the territorial waters of Yemen’s Socotra Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, the country’s Minister of Fish Wealth, Fahd Kafayen, said on Sunday.
“The Iranian regime continues its violations in Yemen,” Kafayen wrote on Facebook, adding that “a fleet of [Iranian] vessels continues to tamper with the Yemeni marine wealth”.
(* B K P)
Forscher wollen mit Maschinenlernen Kriegsverbrechen dokumentieren und verfolgen
Viele Verletzungen von Menschenrechten lassen sich als internationale Verbrechen anzeigen – die nötige Dokumentation wird von lernenden Computern erleichtert.
Menschenrechtsgruppen versuchen schon länger, solche Kriegsverbrechen zu dokumentieren, um sie vor Gerichten zu stoppen – und eine neue Initiative will dafür bei einem Verfahren in Großbritannien bald Maschinenlernen einsetzen. Dies könnte der Auftakt sein zu einer Methode, mit der sich nach dem Crowdsourcing-Prinzip gesammelte Beweise besser auswerten lassen, sodass Organisationen mehr Informationsquellen für ihre Verfahren bekommen.
Die aktuelle Initiative wird geleitet von der britischen Swansea University und mehreren Menschenrechtsorganisationen. Sie ist Teil von laufenden Bemühungen, die mutmaßlichen Kriegsverbrechen im Jemen zu beobachten, um Verantwortliche zur Rechenschaft ziehen zu können. Im Jahr 2017 begann die Plattform Yemeni Archive mit der Zusammenstellung einer Datenbank von Videos und Fotos, die Fehlverhalten dokumentieren. Die Inhalte stammen von tausenden Quellen, direkt von Journalisten und Bürgern ebenso wie aus sozialen Medien wie YouTube und Facebook; damit sie nicht unentdeckt verändert werden können, sind sie mit Blockchain-Technologie gesichert.
Auf dieser Grundlage und zusammen mit der Organisation Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) begannen die Forscher dann, Belege für konkrete Menschenrechtsverletzungen in einer weiteren Datenbank abzulegen, um Verfahren vor verschiedenen nationalen und internationalen Gerichten einzuleiten. „Um vor Gericht eine Verantwortung nachzuweisen, reicht es nicht aus, nur zu zeigen, was geschehen ist“, sagt dazu Yvonne McDermott Rees, Professorin an der Swansea University und Leiterin der Initiative. Man müsse auch konkret belegen, warum ein bestimmter Fall ein Kriegsverbrechen sei. So könnten illegale Waffen zum Einsatz kommen oder bei Luftangriffen Zivilisten ins Visier genommen werden.
In dem aktuellen Fall konzentrieren sich die Partner auf die in Großbritannien hergestellte Streu-Munition BLU-63. Verwendung und Verkauf solcher Explosiv-Waffen, die beim Auftreffen kleinere Sprengkörper verbreiten, sind in 108 Ländern einschließlich Großbritannien verboten. Wenn sich vor einem britischen Gericht beweisen lässt, dass die Munition tatsächlich für Kriegsverbrechen eingesetzt wurde, könnte damit der Verkauf von Waffen aus dem Land nach Saudi-Arabien gestoppt werden; ebenso wären Strafprozesse gegen Personen möglich, die an den Verkäufen beteiligt sind.
Also entwickelten die Forscher ein Maschinenlern-System, dass alle Fälle des Einsatzes von BLU-63 in der Datenbank erkennen soll. Allerdings sind Bilder davon genau wegen der Illegalität selten, sodass das Team nur wenige Daten aus der echten Welt hatte, um sein System zu trainieren. Also entwickelte es eine synthetische Datensammlung auf Grundlage eines simulierten 3D-Modells der Munition.
Anhand der wenigen vorliegenden Real-Beispiele, darunter ein Foto von BLU-63 aus dem Imperial War Museum, entwickelte das Team zusammen mit Adam Harvey, einem Experten für maschinelles Sehen, die 3D-Rekonstruktionen. Zu einem Grundmodell kamen photorealistische Texturen hinzu, unterschiedliche Schäden und Muster. Die Ergebnisse wurden dann unter verschiedenen Licht-Bedingungen und in verschiedenen Umgebungen berechnet, sodass hunderte Standbilder entstanden, die reale Aufnahmen der Munition sein könnten. Um die Quote der falschen Positiv-Meldungen zu verringern, erstellte Harvey außerdem synthetische Daten zu anderen Objekten wie einem grünen Baseball, die mit BLU-63 verwechselt werden könnten.
For information in English: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/25/1004466/ai-could-help-human-rights-activists-prove-war-crimes/
https://www.glanlaw.org/airstrike-evidence-database-yemen
(* B K P)
Yemen’s disaster becomes “cataclysmic”
The five year-old war in Yemen is intensifying. The country is splitting apart as the pandemic ravages the poorest country in the Middle East. The war is a burden on the Saudi economy, dooming hopes of diversification. Iran is the winner in the quagmire.
The escalation in the fighting marks the failure of months of efforts to arrange a ceasefire, including the Saudi public call for a unilateral ceasefire. The Saudis are well aware that the war costs them a fortune, at a time when global oil demand is sharply down and Saudi revenue is low.
Tehran has bogged down its regional rival Saudi Arabia in an expensive debacle in Yemen, with apparently no way out. The war costs to the Iranians, in contrast, are minimal. The Saudis will be tarred by the humanitarian catastrophe they have helped create for years to come, and the crown prince’s reputation is toxic. Iran has a host of problems — the virus, mysterious explosions, and others — but in Yemen it’s a winner – by Bruce Riedel
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/07/06/yemens-disaster-becomes-cataclysmic/
cp2a Saudische Blockade / Saudi blockade
Siehe / Look at cp1
(A K P)
Houthi YPC says coalition detains 20k tons of gas
The Saudi-led coalition supporting legitimacy in Yemen detains two tankers with more than 20,000 tons of gas aboard, the Houthi-run Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC) said Tuesday.
The Arab coalition is persistently holding 20,850 tons of gas on two vessels that have already obtained UN permits to arrive at Hodeida port, the YPC said in a statement carried by Sana'a-based Saba.
Earlier on Tuesday, the coalition released one tanker loaded with 8,315 tons of gas, it added, after the ship had been detained for 60 days.
YPC called on the UN to press for the coalition's allowing the two ships entry to meet gas demand at local market.
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18325.html
(A K P)
Film (Arabic): The march Raymah share of the catastrophe of the lack of oil derivatives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E8zRz0a6Q0
(A K P)
Third fuel ship arrives in Yemen's Hodeidah
A fuel ship arrived on Tuesday in Hodeidah province in western Yemen, the third of four fuel ships that the internationally recognised government has allowed to enter Hodeidah seaport.
Houthi vice chairman of the Red Sea Ports Corporation, Yahya Sharaf Al-Din, said the Eugenia Gas ship arrived at Hodeidah seaport at dawn with 8.315 tons of gas onboard after it had been held by the Saudi-led coalition for 70 days.
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18294.html
(A K P)
[Sanaa gov.] Minister of Water Warns of Catastrophic Crisis of Wastewater Sector Due to Interruption of Oil Derivatives
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=13830
(A K P)
[Sanaa gov.] Agriculture Minister: Severe Damage to Agricultural Sector Due to Lack of Oil Derivatives
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=13829
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
(B H)
Helping Save Lives in Yemen
Relief agency is providing health-care support in war-torn areas.
By: Adventist Development and Relief Agency in Canada, and Adventist Review
ADRA, with funding from the government of Canada, is working hard to meet the needs. From April 2018 to March 2020, ADRA provided resources and supplies to health-care facilities and personnel in one of the most war-torn areas of the country. This project served 225,715 people, of whom 121,532 were women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpPpXM7hSXk
(* B H)
YEMEN: “NOW, MY FAMILY AND I HAVE ACCESS TO FREE QUALITY HEALTHCARE”
In recent months, Première Urgence Internationale has carried out a programme of renovation and modernisation of health facilities in the Hodeidah governorate in north-west Yemen. As a result of these activities, more than 16,000 civilians have had access to free health and nutrition services in modernised and secure facilities.
Première Urgence Internationale is intervening in Yemen on several types of projects: health and nutrition (deployment of health facilities, provision of labour), water, hygiene and sanitation (renovation of infrastructure), and food security (distribution of food parcels to the poorest families).
In the Hodeidah governorate, for example, the NGO supports three health facilities. Between October 2019 and February 2020, more than 16,000 people had access to free health and nutrition services.
Between October 2019 and February 2020, a total of 16,196 people were welcomed and cared for in the three healthcare centres supported by Première Urgence Internationale in the Hodeidah governorate. So, the renovation and improvement of these centres providesaccess to quality health andnutrition services to the local people.
All of these activities were set up by Première Urgence Internationale thanks to financial support from the United States Office for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/OFDA).
(B H)
IsDB Group-funded relief operation serves nearly 77,000 IDPs in Yemen
A humanitarian project funded by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group to provide basic food commodities to Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Yemen has reached 10,990 vulnerable and IDP households comprising of 76,930 people.
The month-long operation, designed to provide food support during the month of Ramadan, was funded by a US $500,000 grant from IsDB Group’s Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development (ISFD) and completed on 15th June 2020 via direct endorsement and proactive support of Yemen’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.
Despite the ongoing security risks on the ground, the task was coordinated and implemented through IsDB Field Office in Yemen, the IsDB Group Regional Hub Dubai, Islamic Help, an International NGO. All the organisations worked in close cooperation with local authorities.
https://www.isdb.org/news/isdb-group-funded-relief-operation-serves-nearly-77000-idps-in-yemen
(B H)
“The Most Magnificent Day of My Life Is The Day I Became A Mother”
After fifteen years of marriage and expecting a baby, a 35-year-old woman, (Zahra Mohammed Faraj) became a mother. "Becoming a mother and having a family was always a dream of mine, I never expected it to happen in these circumstances, especially while coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is spreading everywhere, " Zahra said.
Yes, Zahra had primary infertility for 15 years, yet she got pregnant, and when she went into labor in her 39 weeks, she was admitted to Al Shaheed Yassen Wathab Hospital by her husband. As known, Masroh Sub-district is a hard-to-reach area, where it takes two hours to reach the nearest hospital by car. "Because of the rough road and the long distance from our home to the hospital, I fainted, and when I woke up, I heard a child crying, it was my daughter. At that time, I couldn't be happier." The Mother (Zahra) said.
Zahra arrived at the hospital suffering from watery vaginal discharge with no other symptoms. The doctor and midwives took care of her, where she received good treatment, and the cesarean section was done smoothly with no complications.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/most-magnificent-day-my-life-day-i-became-mother
(A H)
WB provides Yemen with $51 mln to fight locust, Covid-19
The World Bank has allocated more than US$ 51 million in funding for two projects in the second quarter of 2020, the Yemeni official minister of planning and international cooperation said Wednesday.
The first US$ 26.9 million worth project is meant to counter ramifications of Covid-19 pandemic and will be implemented by the ministry of health in cooperation with the WHO, Dr. Najib al-Oaij added in remarks carried by Asharq Al-awsat.
The second US$25-million project is assigned to fight locust and will be implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in cooperation with Yemen's ministry of agriculture, according to the Saudi paper.
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18329.html
(* B H)
UN warns Yemen on brink of famine again
War-torn Yemen is once again on the brink of famine as donor funds that averted catastrophe just 18 months ago have dried up, the country's UN humanitarian coordinator told AFP.
With much of the country dependent on aid, a coronavirus pandemic raging unchecked, and countless children already facing starvation, Lise Grande said that millions of vulnerable families could quickly move from "being able to hold on to being in free fall."
The United Nations raised only around half the required $2.41 billion in aid for Yemen at a June donor conference co-hosted by Saudi Arabia, which leads a military coalition backing the internationally recognised government against Huthi rebels who control much of the north.
Yemen is already gripped by what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands killed, an estimated four million people displaced by war and 80 percent of the country's 29 million people dependent on aid for their survival.
Grande said in an interview from Sanaa that critical programmes providing sanitation, healthcare and food were already closing down because of a lack of cash, just as the economic situation is looking "scarily similar" to the darkest days of the crisis.
A critical fuel shortage, for which the Huthis and the government are trading blame, is now threatening the operation of the electricity grid, water supply, and key infrastructure like hospitals.
"Ships aren't being allowed to bring in life-saving commodities, the currency is depreciating very quickly. The central bank is out of money. The price of a basic food basket... has increased by 30 percent in just the past few weeks alone," Grande said.
"We're seeing the same factors driving the country towards famine that we saw before. We don't have the resources we need to fight it and roll it back this time. It's something to be profoundly worried about."
https://www.france24.com/en/20200708-un-warns-yemen-on-brink-of-famine-again
(* B H)
Kinder im Jemen ohne medizinische Versorgung
Ausbleibende Hilfsgelder: Der anhaltende Krieg, fehlende Hilfsgelder und Corona haben die medizinische Versorgung für Kinder im Jemen fast gänzlich zum Erliegen gebracht, warnt Save the Children
Der anhaltende Krieg, fehlende Hilfsgelder und die Corona-Pandemie haben die medizinische Grundversorgung für Kinder im Jemen beinahe vollständig zum Erliegen gebracht, warnt Save the Children. Zwischen Januar und April ging die Zahl der Besuche bei Gesundheitsdiensten für Kinder um 81 Prozent zurück.Von den 627 Millionen Dollar, die im Jahr 2020 für Hilfseinsätze im Jemen benötigt werden, ist gleichzeitig bisher weniger als die Hälfte eingegangen.
„In dieser tödlichen Kombination aus Gewalt, Krankheiten und Hunger sind die Menschen im Jemen mehr denn je auf Unterstützung angewiesen“, sagt Susanna Krüger, Vorstandsvorsitzende von Save the Children.„Die gesamte jemenitische Bevölkerung leidet unter der fehlenden Gesundheitsversorgung, aber die Kinder, die seit fünf Jahren ums tägliche Überleben kämpfen, trifft es am härtesten. Tausende Mädchen und Jungen brauchen jeden Tag Hilfe. Die Welt schaut zu und reduziert sogar die Hilfsgelder, während Kinder sterben.“
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/kinder-im-jemen-ohne-medizinische-versorgung = https://nerdsfun.de/krieg-corona-und-ausbleibende-hilfsgelder-medizinische-grundversorgung-fuer-kinder-im-jemen-stoppt-fast-vollstaendig/
(* B H)
Save the Children: YEMEN: THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN’S LIVES AT RISK AS HEALTHCARE SERVICES PLUMMET
Healthcare for children in war-torn Yemen has been further devastated by a combination of funding cuts and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Save the Children has warned.
Between January and April of this year, the number of people accessing child health care services plummeted by 81 percent, according to recent data. Some remaining healthcare resources are now focused on providing COVID-19 services, families cannot afford to travel to access medical care or are afraid to visit health facilities in the midst of the rapidly expanding coronavirus outbreak.
With hospitals and health facilities also facing critical shortages of doctors and nurses, the agency says this threatens to leave thousands of children without the medical attention they need to survive.
These are shattering blows at a time when Yemen needs support more than ever. Its population is caught up in a lethal combination of violence, disease and hunger.
Xavier Joubert, Country Director for Save the Children in Yemen said:
“People are turning up with their children at health facilities only to find there’s not enough resources to help everyone, not to mention the shortage of PPE which prevents doctors and other staff from working.
Salem*, 45 from Saada, is a father of six. His youngest child is nine months old and is severely acutely malnourished. He said:
“We are afraid to go to the hospital because of the virus that is killing people but when we see the threat of death in the eyes of our sick child, we have no choice but to risk it and take him to the hospital, borrowing money just to pay the taxi fees that we can’t afford.
“Many families isolate themselves from the coronavirus but what is the point if children are being killed inside their home by air strikes or die because of lack of transportation.”
Five years of war had already pushed the health sector in Yemen to the brink, with only half of the healthcare facilities in the country operational even before the pandemic. With existing services now functioning as COVID-19 treatment centres, child healthcare services are increasingly sidelined.
At the same time, the number of malnourished children under five is estimated to reach 2.4 million by the end of this year. Water and sanitation services vital to the health of Yemen’s children are also critically underfunded and could be forced to close.
Joubert continued: “Some of the clinics we support had to scale back capacity, also for nutrition services, and we are already seeing the impact on children. In Lahj and Hajjah, malnutrition rates have reached 11% and our teams are struggling to continue providing nutrition services. It’s time for all of us to face the harsh reality that we might witness thousands of children dying over the next months, if support remains limited.”
(B H)
Map: Yemen: Access Constraints as of 05 July 2020
https://reliefweb.int/map/yemen/yemen-access-constraints-05-july-2020
(* B H)
‘They need food’: Yemen’s starving children, grim legacy of six years of war
The UN and UNICEF are struggling to save lives as their targeted relief amount needed to help Yemen out of this situation has not yet been amassed.
Masirah Saqer could barely open her eyes, as she struggled to swallow the milk her grandmother attempted to feed her with a syringe.
Nearby the cries of other malnourished children reverberated around the pink-walled hospital ward, a vivid reminder of the human cost of Yemen’s devastating conflict, which drags into a seventh year on Tuesday.
Masirah, just short of three months old, was undergoing treatment at Al-Sabyine hospital’s infant malnutrition department in the capital Sanaa.
Swaddled in a pink and white comforter, her tiny frame and slender limbs were dwarfed by the full-sized bed on which her grandmother sat as she tried to feed her.
Weighing just 2.4 kilograms (5.3 pounds), she suffered from acute malnutrition, her grandmother told AFP.
“We needed a medical checkup, milk, and food. If the medicines are available in the hospital, they give them to us, if not we have to buy them outside,” she said.
Millions of children in Yemen now face starvation due to a lack of aid for the country, UNICEF said in June.
Doctors at Al-Sabyine’s malnutrition department, a facility with capacity for 25 patients, have warned that COVID-19 coupled with fuel shortages have worsened the situation and acted as a barrier to treatment.
Many parents fear their children are at risk of the deadly respiratory disease if they are hospitalised, said doctor Hazaa Abdallah al-Farah.
“Some people ... won’t send their children to hospital any more” due to fears about the virus, he said.
(* B H)
Millions of Yemen's children face starvation as coronavirus outbreak worsens, UNICEF warns
UNICEF says the number of malnourished children could increase to 2.4 million
The war-torn country is on the brink of a massive famine as donations dry up amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The spread of disease, coupled with an ongoing five-year civil war between Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed pro-government forces, is creating the perfect storm for a massive humanitarian crisis, according to UNICEF Yemen’s chief of communication Bismarck Swangin.
“Whilst the criteria to declare a famine have not been met, there is widespread and serious malnutrition, and children are continuing to die on a daily basis,” Swangin told Fox News. “The arrival of COVID-19 has made a difficult situation even worse.”
UNICEF has reported the number of malnourished children could increase to 2.4 million without further international intervention.
Swangin added that social-distancing measures, along with fear of getting sick, created new challenges for hunger response services aimed at reaching mothers and their children.
With 80 percent of Yemen’s population relying on some form of international aid for survival, global attention to the situation has been critical for gathering monetary and humanitarian support.
In June, the United Nations and Saudi Arabia held a donation drive for Yemen, raising $1.35 billion in aid money. The number was half of what U.N. member states pledged last year and includes only a fraction of the money Yemen needs to battle the spread of COVID-19.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/yemen-coronavirus-children-starvation-unicef
(B H)
Very good news. Salwa is getting better and this is her first smile since she got malnutrition. She is recovering gradually. Thank you so much all for standing with her. #Yemen (photos)
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/1280157315723919360
(B H)
Film: Delivering Vital Food in Rural Yemen: July 2020
Ummah Welfare Trust provided large food packs to *1,024 families in rural Yemen this weekend*. Families in the remote town of Badan, in the mountainous Ibb province, were reached
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XgpYC5wjuY
(* B H)
Torrential floods wreak havoc in war-struck Yemen
The rainy season has brought misery to thousands in Yemen. The torrential rainfall and deadly floods claimed tens of lives, affected thousands of people and partially destroyed houses and businesses, mainly in urban areas, in addition to tents and belongings of internally displaced people. Roads and bridges were damaged, water supplies polluted, and basic services for thousands of people were cut.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Yemen Red Crescent Society (YRCS) assessed the damages and provided support to those affected by the floods.
Amid heavy seasonal rains, deadly floods swept through Yemen affecting the lives of thousands of Yemenis who were already devastated by the ongoing conflict, seasonal diseases, high inflation, and compromised health care system, while facing the arrival of COVID-19.
The torrential rains destroyed houses, and damaged an already fragile infrastructure, making some roads impassable in Raymah province, Marib City, and surrounding areas. At least 9,146 families were affected, with Sana'a City and most parts of Sana'a governorate particularly badly hit by flooding. Moreover, over 5,130 families have been affected in Hajjah province alone.
In the southern governorates, an estimated 4,764 households have been affected in camps for the internally displaced people, including 1,812 families in Aden, 1,037 in Abyan, 917 in Taiz and 770 in Lahj governorates. The heavy rains and the weakened infrastructure have set a fertile ground for seasonal and waterborne diseases, which continue to claim dozens of lives in Yemen.
Following the assessments of the damage caused by the floods, the ICRC with the YRCS, supported about 130,000 people affected by the floods around Yemen.
https://www.icrc.org/en/document/torrential-floods-wreak-havoc-war-struck-yemen
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Support for community initiatives builds resilience in Yemen
Yemen is teaching us that it’s possible to strengthen national institutions and build human capital – even in times of conflict – by investing in effective local actors so they are stronger when peace returns.
From the start, the World Bank adopted a new approach to the situation, introducing sustainable, inclusive interventions. The Bank’s strategy for the Middle East & North Africa shifted its engagement from working around instability to working toward stability.
As Yemen’s conflict became more protracted, the Bank, through the Emergency Crisis Response Project, supported the Social Fund for Development (SFD)—a large, national institution the Bank had supported, financially and technically, for over two decades to deliver support to vulnerable populations.
Backing community development
Tamkeen is an example of SFD support. A longstanding program for development planning, it encourages social and economic resilience in the face of conflict by assessing a community’s resources—its skills, public facilities, financial resources, and building materials—and ensuring that local participation in any new infrastructure projects includes women, internally-displaced persons, and other marginalized groups.
The program places conflict-created distrust to one side, empowers the poorest communities, and strengthens social cohesion. This includes the election of Village Cooperative Councils (VCCs), which are trained to convince people not to wait for handouts but to mobilize themselves.
With a budget of US$197,000, one SFD-Tamkeen project has carried out more than 700 small-scale projects serving nearly 80,000 people in the Al-Salfiah district in central Raymah, the poorest, most inaccessible governorate in Yemen. Its initiatives include building and rehabilitating rural roads, improving land and water sources, protecting learning facilities and health facilities, and training people in healthcare and in crafts.
Under the supervision of 90 rural youths (50% of them women), Al-Salfiah’s community elected 93 people to the village councils, another 50% of them women. Mohamed Kawesh, Tamkeen’s local coordinator and community participation director, described this as the largest and most meaningful community response he had witnessed, outdoing anything similar in peacetime.
The program relies on local contributions as well. Abdulsalam Aljarmi, a trader from Kazoma village, said he contributed over US$1,000 to build and pave a road to his mountain-top village.
Tamkeen works by providing each village financial support for its largest initiative, scheduling it for last in order to sustain community momentum throughout the smaller projects that come before it.
A budget of US$22,000 in conditional financing for such a project ignited competition between Al-Salfiah’s 146 local communities, prompting talk about progress rather than conflict. “I visualize this like parts of a vehicle. Each part is doing its role so that the vehicle moves uphill and reaches its destination,” Kawesh, the local Tamkeen coordinator, said. Locally, he said the level of violence subsided.
Tamkeen’s engagement of women helps build peace and social resilience. “Here, it is unprecedented that women’s voices are clearly heard,” said Kawesh
In 2017 and 2018, the SFD-Tamkeen program helped establish 1,900 village councils, which ran 6,300 self-help initiatives and 938 Tamkeen-supported initiatives in 37 out of Yemen’s 333 districts.
Tamkeen is an example of the sort of nutrition and microfinance programs the World Bank has supported in Yemen since 1997.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/arabvoices/support-community-initiatives-builds-resilience-yemen
(B H)
FAO Supports Smallholder’s Resilience in Yemen through Animal Disease Control, Vaccination and Mass Treatment Campaigns
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in Yemen, through the Smallholder Agriculture Production and Restoration Enhancement Project (SAPREP), funded by the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP) in collaboration with the World Bank, launched a national animal vaccination and treatment campaign in partnership with local agriculture offices at the governorate and district levels.
1.8 million sheep and goats in 48 districts throughout six governorates of Yemen to be vaccinated and treated against Peste des Petits Ruminants and Sheep and Goat Pox, benefiting over 41,000 rural households.
http://www.fao.org/neareast/news/view/en/c/1295363/
(B H)
UNICEF Yemen Country Office Humanitarian Situation Report (Reporting Period: 1 - 31 May 2020)
COVID-19 continues to challenge the implementation of some UNICEF programmes due to restrictive measures imposed by local authorities, such as closure of schools and child-friendly spaces.
The supply movement in country remains challenging due to long pre-approval processes and delays in receiving required clearances and permissions. Nevertheless, in May supplies worth $2.3 million arrived in Yemen from Djibouti and Oman. Those supplies include PPE, AWD kits, pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, hospital equipment, education materials, and ready-to-use therapeutic food. The delivery was completed with a flight, a vessel, and nine trucks to Sana'a and Al Hudaydah.
The United Nations Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting verified 20 incidents of grave violations against children. Two children were killed and 27 children were maimed by various parties to the conflict.
10,086 cases of Acute Watery Diarrhea (AWD)/suspected cholera and six associated deaths were reported in May, with a 0.06 % of the case fatality rate.
(B H)
WFP: Yemen Monthly Overview May 2020
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-monthly-overview-may-2020
cp4 Flüchtlinge / Refugees
(B H)
Providing Water to the IDP Settlements in Ma'rib Gov
In most locations in Ma'rib Governorate, water is scarce, especially in areas like Al Jofenah. Unfortunately, the host communities of Al Jofenah area used to get water by water trucking, which is very costly. However, the IDPs of Al Jofenah Settlement accustomed to run behind the water trucks to get a few liters of clean water. “When we see the water truck, we run behind it to get some liters of water, while not catching the water truck, we have to buy water from the grocery.” Salma Awbal said.
IDP Settlements without clean water can spread disease instead of providing shelter and protection.
Hundreds of IDPs encounter an increased risk of infection by seeking shelter in hosting settlements that lack necessities, including water, sanitation, and hygiene services. “It's been ages since I had a shower, and I always get ill because I sleep on the ground, where there is a mess, as you can see. We cannot clean where we sleep due to the shortage of water.” That’s what Al Hajjah Salma added.
To end up the suffering of the IDPs including Al Hajjah Salma, Building Foundation for Development (BFD), funded by Yemen Humanitarian Fund (YHF) implemented three water projects in three targeted sites, (Al Jofenah - Al Athar - The Community College), in which two elevated reservoirs with a capacity of 200 m 3 were constructed, and a ground reservoir was established. Moreover, the urban water networks of each site were rehabilitated, and water distribution points were established in each site too.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/providing-water-idp-settlements-marib-gov
(* B H)
UNHCR: 13% of Yemenis displaced by war
Some 13 per cent of Yemenis have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in the country, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Yemen warned yesterday.
Jean-Nicolas Beuze said that besides diseases such as cholera and malaria, the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated people’s tragedies and complicated the work of local partners, warning that the virus could have dire consequences on the situation the ground.
Remarking on the impact of the lack of funding on the UNHCR’s work, Beuze explained that, like other humanitarian organisations, UNHCR faces an ethical dilemma having to choose who will receive assistance and in what way.
“Lack of funding forces us to significantly reduce the number of shelter packages that we distribute in emergency situations which could lead to thousands of families living in the open and being exposed to many risks in times of floods; without protection from infectious diseases or exploitation,” he said.
The UN official explained that reducing the number of beneficiaries of UNHCR’s cash assistance program will leave dozens of families without the ability to purchase food, medicine or clothing and will force displaced families and refugee to make dangerous choices to secure their livelihoods, such as reducing their food rations, begging or engaging in dangerous work or sending their children to do so.
He noted that UNHCR’s cash assistance program has become a lifeline for more than 1.5 million of the most vulnerable displaced Yemenis.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200707-unhcr-13-of-yemenis-displaced-by-war/
(B H)
Film: Mother Helpage || Qurbani Project 2020 || Yemen Needs You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-jA7FDBico
(* B H)
IOM Yemen - Marib Response (01 July 2020)
As conflict activities along frontline areas in Marib and Al Jawf frontline subside, new displacements into Marib have also slowed. However, with increased insecurity in Al Bayda governorate, new displacements into Marib (which shares a border with Al Bayda) are likely to increase again, should the situation not improve. Conditions in Marib is already dire for the over 23,000 IDPs residing in more than 130 IDP-hosting sites in the governorate, particularly due to the risks COVID-19 poses on health and the increasing barriers to accessing critical services.
IOM continues to meet the multi-sectoral needs of IDPs and migrants in Marib, working with partners to provide safe shelters, essential aid items, emergency health care, clean water, safe sanitation and emergency food rations. At the same time, COVID-19 prevention and response efforts are being scaled up in IDP and migrant hosting sites as well as for host community members in Marib City, Al Wadi and Sirwah districts.
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/iom-yemen-marib-response-01-july-2020
(B H)
IOM Yemen | Rapid Displacement Tracking (RDT) - Reporting Period: 28 Jun - 04 Jul 2020
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
(C P)
Symposium über das Tanumah - Massaker und hundert Jahre saudische Aggression gegen den Jemen
Ein wissenschaftliches Symposium wurde in Sanaa vom jemenitischen Zentrum für politische und strategische Studien organisiert mit dem Titel "Das Massaker an Tanumah und hundert Jahre saudischer Aggression gegen den Jemen und die Pilger des Heiligen Hauses Gottes".
Bei der Eröffnung des Symposiums, an dem der Minister für öffentlichen Dienst und Versicherungen, Idris Al-Sharjabi, und das Mitglied des Shura-Rates, Dr. Hizam al-Assad und Musleh Abu Shaar, teilnahmen, betonte Dr. Hammoud al-Ahnoumi in einer Rede über das jemenitische Zentrum für politische und strategische Studien, wie wichtig es ist, an das Gedenkmassaker der jemenitischen Pilger zu erinnern.
Während des Symposiums wurden fünf Arbeitspapiere vorgestellt.
Das erste vom Präsidenten der Al-Bayda-Universität, Dr. Ahmed Al-Arami, vorgelegt und befasst den Ursachen des Massakers an "Tanumah und Sedwan".
Er verwies auf die Rolle Großbritanniens bei dem Massaker von Tanumah, das es zu Beginn seiner Formulierung von Plänen zur Bildung der arabischen Welt, einschließlich der arabischen Halbinsel, auf der Grundlage der Teilungspolitik nach den im ersten Viertel des 20. Jahrhunderts erlebten Veränderungen und einer Reihe von Ereignissen und Variablen wie der Beendigung der osmanischen Herrschaft und der Erklärung von Balfour zur Besetzung Palästinas spielte.
Dr. Al-Arami wies darauf hin, dass der Jemen das Herzstück der britischen Politik war und bleibt, die durch die Spaltung versuchte, ihre kolonialen Ziele zu festigen, vor allem, um eine Annäherung zwischen den Söhnen der arabischen und islamischen Nation zu verhindern, insbesondere angesichts der Forderungen, die zu dieser Zeit von den freien Arabern befürwortet wurden.
https://www.saba.ye/de/news3102152.htm
(C P)
The massacre of Yemeni hajis in Tanomah.. A crime against humanity
The Kingdom of Al Saud has a long history of brutal hostility towards the Yemeni people from its founding to the present day, a continuing historical animosity and an unbroken decades-long conspiracy against Yemen, land and human being.
The Saudi regime did not respect the right of neighborliness, but trampled on the realities of history and geography against a country that extended its arms to communicate and establish relations of neighbors and brothers, but those who lived and were raised on crime, blood and murder could not change their behavior and edition overnight.
Since the establishment of his state in the 1930s, the Al Saud has focused all its interests on Yemen, sowing discord, division and spreading chaos and crime, their history in this long and multifaceted path has been the enemy of Yemen in all its historical stages and the succession of its systems.
At all stages of Yemeni history and the kingdom of evil standing in the face of this country, the plots against it are hatched and spreading crime, terror, corruption, discord among its children, looking for weaknesses to gain access to the Yemeni depth.
The Kingdom of Al Saud sire taught the lessons of the occupiers of The English and The Americans, which they set up by a state through conspiracy, murder and blood, to carry out its agenda in Yemen and commit horrific massacres throughout the history of the relationship between the two countries and the two neighboring peoples.
We are now living at the beginning of the third millennium, and the Saudi regime still carries the same misguided and conspiratorial ideology against the Yemeni people, and these six-year wars are visible and a crime is being experienced by contemporary Yemeni generations.
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3102164.htm
My remark: Saudi-Yemeni relations, as seen by the Houthis.
(* A K P)
Houthis accuse US aid agencies of spying under humanitarian guise
Military spokesperson for the Ansar Allah Group, the Houthis, on Tuesday accused the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, of financing and supporting spy organisations that are operating under humanitarian slogans in Yemen.
In a press conference on his group's latest military operations in Yemen's provinces of Bayda and Marib, he displayed US weapons that were seized at sites of mercenaries with USAID's logo on them.
"Our people are being killed with US weapons. They are suffering because the United States of America is pushing its tools in the region, the Saudi and UAE regimes, to implement its agenda and policies that also serve the Zionist entity," he said.
We have allowed US agencies to carry out humanitarian activities in regions under our control, but activities of some of these organisations are serving the enemy militarily, he said.
Commenting on the Houthi operations in Saudi Arabia, Sari'a said they are striking only military targets.
"We have succeeded in carrying out qualitative operations on sensitive targets within our bank of targets. The language of threats and menacing does not work on the Yemeni people and their armed forces and Mujahideen".
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18297.html
and
(* A K P)
Humanitarian Affairs Council to investigate USAID's involvement in suspicious actions
The Supreme Council for Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and International Cooperation on Tuesday said it will form a committee to investigate the US Agency for International Development (USAID)'s involvement in suspicious actions contradicting humanitarian actions in Yemen.
The Council indicated that it would address the USAID to ask for clarifications on the reasons for the presence of its logo on weapons recently found by the army and the popular committees on fronts of Marib and Bayda provinces and others.
The statement referred to the scenes displayed during the press briefing of the army spokesman, which prove the involvement of the US agency - operating in funding relief and humanitarian work - in providing a party to the war with weapons.
https://www.saba.ye/en/news3102050.htm
and Press statement: https://twitter.com/YahyaSare/status/1280486878957965313
https://twitter.com/YahyaSare/status/1280486781864026118
and
Films https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68hjmOsmYJI = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGbJuVUJlsI = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JYbPBbOCqc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygZltBtPo6s
and snippet: https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/1280495861341052937
Photos: https://twitter.com/I4Yemen/status/1280567490444214274
Comments: It is impossible that USAID could engage in such business. They have different mandate. if KSA or US want to transfer weapons they have formal channles.. Houthies are part of Iran propaganda against US, I think they have plans to ruin USAID reputation in Yemenis eyes..
https://twitter.com/afrah_alzouba/status/1280570791260819457
For sure there is a need for official statement. US does support the government of #Yemen & Houthis here are saying they captured these from troops supporting the government. At the end these weapons regardless of origin ended up in the hands of non-state actors.
https://twitter.com/RashaJarhum/status/1280581841179807745
Also, this logo on weapons was created in 1953, and was in use from about 1961 up to 1992.
https://twitter.com/Alsakaniali/status/1280576670949408776
and Hadi government’s claim:
(A P)
Houthis targeting USAID, logo on weapons fabricated, Yemen minister
The Houthi Group is spreading lies and fabrications that US aid agencies have sent weapons to warfronts in Yemen, information minister in the internationally recognised government, Muammar Al-Eryani, said on Wednesday.
"The Houthi Group used an old logo which is no longer used by USAID and put it on weapon boxes in a way which underestimated the minds of the Yemeni people," he said.
https://debriefer.net/en/news-18332.html
My comment: Whether true or not, USAID isn’t a humanitarian aid organization, but a tool for securing US influence in the world. As they themselves tells it: “"On behalf of the American people, we promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. In support of America's foreign policy, the U.S. Agency for International Development leads the U.S. Government's international development and disaster assistance through partnerships and investments that save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance, and help people emerge from humanitarian crises and progress beyond assistance." Everybody should know what “we promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad” actually means. It’s a threat.
(A P)
Sana’a to Commemorate 100th Anniversary of Al Saud’s Slaughtering of Yemeni Pilgrims
The Yemenis will mark on Wednesday the 100th anniversary of the massacre of the Yemeni pilgrims in Tanomah and Sadwan at the hands of the gangs of bin Saud in 1923.
The capital, Sana'a, is witnessing a number of events devoted to memorialization, while activists launch an online campaign to commemorate the hideous massacre.
The massacre documented by history books, claimed the lives of more than 3000 unarmed Yemeni pilgrims killed by the gangs of Al Saud in 1923.
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=13851
(A P)
Houthi militia self-styled court sentences a minor by the name Jamil al-Qamaee to five years in jail in Sana'a on charges of gathering intelligence for a foreign country
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-40651
(B P)
Yemen: four journalists could be executed at any moment
The Yemeni journalists Abdul Khaleq Amran, Akram Al-Walidi, Hareth Humaid and Tawfiq Al-Mansouri were found guilty of espionage by a Houthi court in Sanaa and received the maximum sentence in April this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PybpjgBEmo
(* B P)
Houthi leader accuses his group of appointing and empowering corrupt figures
A prominent Houthi leader has lashed out his group, accusing its leadership of appointing and empowering corrupt figures as well as suppressing the Yemeni people.
Saleh Habra, former chairman of the Houthi Political Office, posted on his Facebook page wondering about the Houthis’ double standards in empowering corrupt leaders while at the same time claiming to fight corruption.
“We demand to deter the corrupt leaders, yet it is we who carefully chose them,” said Saleh Habra.
He questioned the claims made by the group that it serves the people’s interests as he doubted the fact that Yemenis are pleased with the group taking control of large swaths of the country.
“What is the point in ruling a people who do not want to be ruled by us?” he asked. “But we insist on the thought that we rule them for their own good. That’s what control freaks claim.”
He added that his group allegedly cares about the Yemeni people, but it has done just the opposite since it control and had power.
“It is true that there is a blockade, but this does not give an excuse to the authorities not to commit to serving the people,” Habrah explained.
Mr. Habrah also accused Houthis of imprisoning a lot of people in Saddah province, the stronghold of the Houthi movement, under the pretext of working against the group.
“Who would accept to frame accusations against innocent people for wicked purposes, to hold them in prison, own their lands and homes, and so on and forth?” he wondered.
According to Habrah, the Houthi group used to have a reforming project, but things don’t seem the way they were as the Houthi militias are taking advantage of the imposed reality.
https://republicanyemen.net/archives/24813
(A P)
Several al Houthi militants reportedly clashed amongst themselves in Hazm al ‘Udayn district in Ibb governorate in central Yemen. The clashes allegedly erupted over a dispute during a funeral of an al Houthi militant. Al Houthi militants reportedly clashed with each other over land east of the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, on July 4.[3]
Fortsetzung / Sequel: cp6 – cp18
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-665b-yemen-war-mosaic-665b
Vorige / Previous:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-664-yemen-war-mosaic-664
Jemenkrieg-Mosaik 1-664 / Yemen War Mosaic 1-664:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose oder / or http://poorworld.net/YemenWar.htm
Der saudische Luftkrieg im Bild / Saudi aerial war images:
(18 +, Nichts für Sensible!) / (18 +; Graphic!)
http://poorworld.net/YemenWar.htm
http://yemenwarcrimes.blogspot.de/
Liste aller Luftangriffe / and list of all air raids:
http://yemendataproject.org/data/
Untersuchung ausgewählter Luftangriffe durch Bellingcat / Bellingcat investigations of selected air raids:
Untersuchungen von Angriffen, hunderte von Filmen / Investigations of attacks, hundreds of films:
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