Schwerpunkte / Key aspects
Klassifizierung / Classification
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
cp2 Allgemein / General
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
cp7 UNO / UN
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
cp8a Brüssel: Terrorismus und Saudis / Brussels: Terrorism and Saudi
cp9 USA
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
cp15 Propaganda
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
Klassifizierung / Classification
***
**
*
(Kein Stern / No star)
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
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
23.3.2016 – Amnesty International (** A P)
Petition: Block the Bombs: Stop the $1 Billion U.S. Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia’s government has led a devastating campaign of unlawful air strikes and bombardment of civilian targets in the nearby country of Yemen. Thousands of civilians have died. Many more have been injured and displaced. Yemen is now in a humanitarian crisis.
Despite this, President Obama has authorized the sale of over 18,000 bombs and 1,500 warheads to Saudi Arabia. These bombs have not yet been delivered.
Amnesty International has found both unexploded U.S. bombs and fragments of exploded U.S. bombs in the ruins of Yemeni homes and other civilian objects.
Urge President Obama and Congress to cancel the arms sale and stop the delivery of these bombs to Saudi Arabia. Block the bombs now.
https://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=47501
24.3.2016 – IRIN (** B H)
Life gets crowded on the bottom rung in Yemen
Before war ravaged Yemen, the country’s black citizens occupied the lowest rung on the societal ladder. Poorer than the poorest of other Yemenis, the group, usually called the Akhdam (servants) prefer to be referred to as Muhamasheen (marginalised ones), and work as street sweepers, rubbish collectors, and panhandlers.
The war, in a macabre way, has levelled the playing field. But it’s a race to the bottom. Almost all Yemenis have now been hit hard by the conflict and the humanitarian catastrophe it has set off. More and more different groups of Yemenis have joined the Muhamasheen on the bottom rung.
“At the beginning it was a clear distinction [between the Muhamasheen and other Yemenis], but now everyone is extremely affected,” Buthaina al-Iryani, UNICEF’s head of social policy in Yemen, told IRIN.
There are thought to be roughly one million Muhamasheen in Yemen, mostly concentrated in Sana'a and Taiz provinces. Like the vast majority of Yemenis, they speak Arabic and are Muslim. Myth says they are descendants of a defeated Ethiopian army sent into exile after their defeat by Muslim rulers 1,000 years ago, but no one really knows for sure.
How has Yemeni society been torn apart by the conflict and what sort of country will emerge when the dust finally settles?
While the Muhamasheen are still extremely poor, and UNICEF has targeted them for special aid, they are by no means the only Yemenis now struggling to find enough to eat.
Hisham al-Omeisy, a Sana’a based political analyst, said he’s seen Muhamasheen fighting with other Yemenis for the best begging spots on street corners. It’s a new sight in the capital, and a sign of the desperation the war has wrought.
“It is heartbreaking when you see them fighting for a piece of bread,” al-Omeisy told IRIN.
When the war erupted, many Muhamasheen struggled to find their feet because they didn't own property or have home villages to return to. Without the tribal networks to fall back on, they were some of the first to head to camps for the internally displaced.
But now, UNICEF’s al-Iryani says many others have had to join them, as the tribal support networks have broken down for other groups of Yemenis too, “because of the extreme poverty.”
In al-Shimayateen, some 70 kilometres from the devastated city of Taiz, more than 300 people – Muhamasheen and other Yemenis – are living together in a school that has been turned into a camp for IDPs. For others to live in such proximity with Muhamasheen is a rarity in Yemeni society.
“Even if all of us are living in the same camp, there are clear indications of discrimination and that they hate us.”
It’s not just poverty that has wrecked tribal networks. Al-Omeisy said that political allegiances and regional tensions have also widened the divides.
This has even happened inside his own family, he explained, as various branches have taken opposing sides in the conflict and no longer speak.
Much of the bitterness is split along north-south lines.
The north-south division is older than the war, but these days it’s become a geographical distinction that can mean life or death.
“If I go to a checkpoint now, the first thing a Houthi [fighter] will ask me is where are you from,” explained al-Omeisy. The same happens at checkpoints run by Hadi loyalists on the other side.
Aside from the Muhamasheen, those who lack traditional access to power – like women and children – are also among the most vulnerable.
Al-Muslimi worried about a generation of children growing up without enough to eat, and Omeisy said: “you see women going to garbage cans in the middle of the night looking for food when no one is looking.”
Now that peace talks are imminent, there’s concern of who exactly is coming to the table, whether they’ll represent civil society, look out for the little guy, or even be any different than Yemen’s traditional power brokers.
Given the fact that the main protagonists in the war are both old men and former or deposed presidents, al-Omeisy, for one, isn’t holding his breath.
“Now that the divisions are even deeper and the humanitarian situation is more catastrophic, even if there are peace talks it is still the usual suspects back in play, and that won’t improve the situation for the people,” he told IRIN.
Al-Muslimi too worries about what sort of society will emerge if and when the war ends.
“This is a civil war, not a football game where one team wins and you go home,” he said. “Hatred, revenge, tribal rivalries: this is what is terrifying. For the first time Yemenis are not meeting to talk and chew ghat... Now they are meeting to fight each other. And there will be consequences [after the war]. It will be ugly.” – by Nasser Al-Sakkaf
http://www.irinnews.org/feature/2016/03/24/life-gets-crowded-bottom-rung-yemen
24.3.2016 – Oxfam (*** B H K)
Yemen’s invisible food crisis
A year of intense conflict has created one of the world’s biggest humanitarian emergencies and risks pushing millions into famine
An invisible food crisis has pushed almost a quarter of the population to the edge of starvation,4 and risks turning famine warnings into a reality over the coming months.
Conflict has forced 2.4 million people to flee their homes and has destroyed jobs, creating crippling debt and poverty. The destruction of trading routes and farms by warring parties, a de facto blockade on commercial imports and a drop in agricultural production, as well as a long-running fuel crisis have created a scarcity of supplies in markets and exorbitant prices for staple food items.
Now a looming financial crisis threatens to compound one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. In February, the Central Bank of Yemen stopped guaranteeing favourable exchange rates for imports of sugar – and the latest indications are that it may be about to do the same for rice and wheat.
Business people have told Oxfam that they are deeply concerned. For example, one of the main importers of wheat to Yemen said it may have to halt its shipments of grain in March and April due to the uncertainty in the banking sector.
Saudi Arabia has purchased billions of dollars in arms, including drones, bombs, torpedoes, rockets and missiles – mostly from the USA and the UK – to support its ongoing campaign in Yemen. The sale of arms to parties to the conflict compromises governments’ ability to promote a peaceful solution to the crisis.
These weapons have been quietly fuelling the Yemen conflict and making life worse for the 21.2 million people – or 82 percent of the population – who are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Yet as of 22 March, the UN humanitarian appeal for Yemen, which requested $1.8bn to cover the needs of 13.6 million people in 2016, is only 12 percent funded.
This catastrophic cocktail of under-reported crises means millions of people may not be able to afford food in the coming months.
Oxfam surveyed more than 250 people across 31 areas of Hajjah governorate in north-west Yemen in February 2016, and found that 60 percent of families were forced to borrow or forage for food. Some people displaced by the conflict said they fear hunger and starvation, for both themselves and their children, if the conflict continues.
Many said their savings were running out and increasing food prices mean they will not be able to provide the basic food their family needs. All respondents spent more per month than they are able to earn. For example, women displaced to urban areas such as Abs said their average monthly outgoings were $214 against an average income of $118. The high cost of living means more girls are being forced into early marriage as a way of increasing the family income; and as poverty increases, women and girls are increasingly being exposed to violence, abuse and exploitation.
Even before the escalation of conflict, Yemen had 10 million hungry people and one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world,5 with half of children under the age of five chronically malnourished.6
A Yemen government and UN survey of nutrition levels between August and October 2015 found alarming levels of malnutrition. For example, in Al-Hodeidah 31 percent of the population was acutely malnourished compared with 18.3 percent in 2014.7
In June 2015, 10 out of the 22 governorates in Yemen were classified as ‘one step away’ from famine and in need of immediate life-saving assistance. 8,9
Oxfam’s food survey found that 63 percent of households said they rely on credit or loans to buy food, while almost half of those surveyed said they rely on neighbours and community members to supplement their food supply.
Since so few borrowers are able to pay back loans on time, formal lenders are increasingly unwilling to extend credit to poor families. The reduction in household loans threatens to curb the flow of goods into some of the most food insecure areas, as purchasing power hits rock bottom.
All respondents said they will continue to reduce the size and frequency of meals as stocks of sorghum run out this month.
Following reports that the Central Bank of Yemen may soon stop providing credit lines for wheat, which guarantees that sellers will receive payments on time, businesses are concerned that they will lose a significant proportion of their income, making trading not economically viable.
Yemeni importers are also being forced to purchase foreign currency on the black market, threatening to push the price of food beyond the reach of the 14.4 million people who are already going hungry.
The financial crisis is already having an impact on the poorest families. Since the Central Bank of Yemen stopped guaranteeing favourable exchange rates on imports of sugar, Oxfam has noted increases in the price of sugar of up to eight percent.11
Yemen is reliant on imports for roughly 90 percent of its food.
Delays and disruptions at ports are not only as a result of active combat. A year-long de facto blockade has had a huge and long-term impact on the economy and the humanitarian situation. A major importer of wheat said that its January shipments were held at sea for more than a month at the cost of $15,000 per day.
For example, import restrictions have created a dire shortage of vegetable seeds, and as the planting season approaches and stocks run low, the lack of agricultural supplies could have a devastating impact on food production over the coming year.
Many commercial companies have stopped shipping to Yemen because of high insurance premiums, fears for the safety of their staff and concerns about safe passage for their ships.
Damaged roads and destroyed bridges hamper the transport of imported goods to markets across the country. Fuel and food prices remain above pre-crisis levels, and essential commodities are priced out of the reach of vulnerable Yemenis. With depleted savings and overstretched safety nets, the collapsing economy has shrunk the purchasing power of the average citizen.
Yemen’s largest port, Al Hudaydah, which handles 60 percent of all imports, has been operating on reduced capacity since five of its cranes used to offload containers were damaged in an airstrike in August 2015. The port is also congested due to damaged infrastructure and continued fuel shortages.
Over the past year, Yemen’s food production has been depleted by conflict. The country used to grow only 10 percent of the wheat it consumes, but that figure has almost halved as people have been forced to flee their land to seek safety elsewhere, while high fuel prices are making it difficult for farmers to irrigate their crops.
Air strikes have destroyed poultry farms, and fishing boats have been damaged or destroyed. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) says that 65 percent of fishermen and 650,000 casual workers have stopped working due to the conflict. As a result, the amount of fish available in Sana’a and other governorates has drastically reduced – not only because there are fewer boats at sea but also as a result of the security risks of transporting fish and providing refrigeration in the midst of an ongoing fuel crisis.
A rapid business survey conducted by the UN across the country in August and September 2015 found that 64 percent of businesses had no stocks in their storerooms, and those with an inventory had less than two months’ worth of supplies left.15
Twenty percent of food businesses said powdered milk, wheat and rice were not available, adding that sourcing food was made more difficult by average price increases of 44 percent since war broke out.
Once into the ports or on to the trucks, getting food to remote and difficult-to-reach areas is still a challenge. High fuel prices (the average price of fuel is more than 55 percent higher than it was one year ago), insecurity and harassment by all parties in the conflict are making food delivery a daily battle.
For example, humanitarian agencies are finding it extremely difficult to reach the border areas of Sa’ada and Hajjah due to ongoing air strikes and artillery barrages. Access to Aden and the south of the country is also hugely challenging – even if permission to travel is granted, widespread violence due to an increasing security vacuum often prevents food delivery or aid work.
When the UNDP spoke to business owners six months ago, 75 percent of food traders said they were unable to purchase new stock because goods were not available or they did not have the capital to restock.
Oxfam interviews with 30 traders in Hajjah governorate in February showed a reduction in stock over the past three months, mainly due to a drop in demand. Most said there has also been an increase in debt, with customers unable to repay their credit. A trader in Al Raboaa Abbs said customers are requesting dramatically smaller quantities of food.
The crisis is forcing many shops to close, and the banking crisis will only make the uncertainty of business all the more stark, especially for small businesses and traders.
Comment: A totally depressing view of the humanitarian situation in Yemen, worsened mainly by the Saudi aerial war and the blockade. And, by having made this possible, a fault the “West” must be blamed for. Please read the article in full at the original site, including five Yemenis describing their situation. There are more reports from Oxfam in cp3 Humanitarian situation.
23.3.2016 – The talking of the Soul (** A H)
Tareq Abdullah and no chance of survival in war-torn Yemen
Tareq Abdullah is only 10 years old.
He comes from an extremely indigent family of Hodeidah, Westerm Yemen, and life has balanced the lack of money in his days with abundancy of illnesses and grief.
Tareq happens to be deaf, suffers from renal failure and has an enlarged heart.
With such a clinical record, chances of survival in war-torn Yemen are close to nil.
Chances of having a decent life in the current situation, none.
In Yemen, devastated by daily bombardments, the few hospitals still operating are on the brink of collapsing and there would not be, anyhow, a way of treating him. The country is under an air-land-sea siege and little or close to nothing, including medicines, are allowed to enter.
More than 20 million people, 80 per cent of the population, require humanitarian assistance.
So far, the request of humanitarian aid of $ 1.800 million for 2016, released the past month of February, has received a mere 12 %.
Tareq´s days are counted.
Tareq cannot afford even to dream. The world is distant to him and has failed him from birth, from day one.
We do not want Tareq to be forgotten. We do not want Tareq´s case to be considered a collateral damage of the war.
Is there, somewhere, in the world, someone out of the 7 billion people, who can help us?
Tareq´s case has been documented by the Rehabilitation and care Fund for people with disabilities in Sanaa (Bayt Meyad – behind the office of Education – Al-Sabyen Directorate Tel: 00967-1-619774 Fax: 00967-1-619231/5) and we hope, so hope, our plea will be heard.
https://thetalkingofthesoul.wordpress.com/2016/03/23/tareq-abdullah-and-no-chance-of-survival-in-war-torn-yemen/ = https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=992001644186199&id=961126490607048
Comment: There certainly are many victims of the war nobody counts as such. As in the following article:
23.3.2016 – Aljazeera (** B H)
What it's like to be a cancer patient in Yemen today
One year after the war on Yemen started, patient deaths rise due to lack of medical treatment and supplies.
Sina al-Asbahi, 29, was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago. For two years, she received chemotherapy every three weeks at Al-Amal health centre in Taiz.
However, the closure of the centre in April last year left her with very few options.
Her family, which lives 70km from Taiz in the village of al-Asabeh, braved ongoing fighting and a siege on the city to take Asbahi to a temporary clinic set up in the city centre. But her brother, Osama, told Al Jazeera that once they arrived, a doctor said the clinic had run out of chemical injections and did not offer radiation therapy.
After borrowing more than $2,300 to send Asbahi to 280km journey to Sanaa every three weeks for chemotherapy, Asbahi's family could no longer afford her cancer treatment.
Asbahi stopped going to Sanaa last June, and she died on February 28.
"Painkillers were the only things we could give Sina during the last three months, because we did not have money to help her," Osama said, visibly shaken by the loss of his sister.
Asbahi was one of many Yemeni patients struggling to get the care they need during the ongoing war, which has pitted Houthi rebels against a coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia.
Yemen's healthcare system is in tatters. Nearly 300 hospitals and healthcare facilities have suffered damage in the war, Ahmed al-Qubati, the central monitoring coordinator at Yemen's Health Ministry, told Al Jazeera.
More than 4,000 health facilities are still working, but most are not in conflict zones such as Taiz city, while some others are working without permission from the Health Ministry. "Most of these hospitals and health facilities have closed either completely or partially, after they were targeted by either the Houthis or the Saudi-led air strikes," Qubati said.
Further compounding the problem is the fact that most provinces across Yemen have been without a steady supply of electricity since April 2015, forcing hospitals and other health facilities to rely on expensive, fuel-powered generators.
Many foreign doctors who performed specialised procedures have left Yemen, while local factories that manufactured medicines have closed due to power cuts, and medical imports have slowed to a trickle, Qubati said.
The cost of some medicines has doubled, while the factories that once produced 15 percent of the country's medical stockpiles are now only manufacturing five percent.
There is a lack of medicine for blood pressure, psychological disorders, stomach problems and some other kinds of drugs, Qubati said, confirming that the local factories do not produce the alternative medicines.
"When we try to find a solution for one problem, another one appears," Qubati said, noting that the most pressing priority now is importing much-needed medicine and supplies and providing state-run hospitals with enough fuel to function. They are going to import some medicines, such as those for blood pressure, from Egypt.
"If the war continues … I expect more hospitals and health facilities to close, and that means more casualties," he said.
Qubati says that 10 percent of those sick are unable to access the healthcare they need, but some of them can live without it even if this may affect their health.
Others have already died because they could not access the healthcare they needed.
"If the war continues to next year, I think the percentage will increase, but I hope that we can find a solution," Qubati added – by Nasser Al-Sakkaf
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/cancer-patient-yemen-today-160320071120122.html
23.3.2016 – ITV (** B P)
Film: Saudi Arabia Uncovered
With undercover footage and on-the-ground reporting, FRONTLINE reveals a side of Saudi Arabia that's rarely seen, and traces the efforts of men and women who are working to bring about change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZK_Jx8VQd0 and here just the trailer: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/saudi-arabia-uncovered/
cp2 Allgemein / General
24.3.2016 – Der Standard (* B K P)
Kriegsmüdigkeit eröffnet Chance auf Jemen-Gespräch
Die saudisch geführte Intervention im Jemen geht ins zweite Jahr. Die militärische Bilanz für Riad ist ernüchternd – und die USA sehen mit Sorge, wie Al-Kaida und der IS vom Krieg profitieren
Die unterschiedlichen Agenturnachrichten rund um den Jahrestag geben die Situation im Jemen ganz gut wieder:
Ab Mitte April soll es in Kuwait Friedensverhandlungen geben. Frühere Versuche, den Krieg zu beenden, sind fehlgeschlagen: Aber offenbar gibt es nun neuen Druck von den die Saudis logistisch unterstützenden USA: Dass womöglich mit US-Gerät und -Assistenz Kriegsverbrechen begangen werden könnten, ist einer der Gründe für die US-Ungeduld – aber auch, dass die größten Nutznießer des Kriegs im Jemen bisher Al-Kaida und "Islamischer Staat" heißen. Das bereits vorigen Juli befreite Aden wird heute von islamistischen Milizen dominiert und versinkt in Chaos und Gewalt: ein Menetekel, was aus dem ganzen Jemen, in dem es ja auch eine sezessionistische Bewegung im Süden gibt, werden könnte.
Die Erfahrung, die Riad mit der Intervention gemacht hat – für die allgemein der junge Vizekronprinz und Verteidigungsminister Muhammed bin Salman (MbS) verantwortlich gemacht wird -, muss ernüchternd sein: Die saudisch-jemenitische Grenze, sogar das saudische Territorium hat sich als verletzlich erwiesen. Fortschritte wurden mit großen Opfern erkauft – auch auf Seite der Alliierten, von der es aber nur inoffizielle Zahlen über Tote und Verletzte gibt, angeblich in den Tausenden. Auch tausende jemenitische Zivilisten sind tot, niemand hat hier einen verlässlichen Überblick. Hohe Kosten, große Opfer Für das unter dem – wenngleich selbstgemachten – tiefen Ölpreis leidende Saudi-Arabien kommen auch die hohen Kosten für den Krieg zur Unzeit – von Gudrun Harrer
http://derstandard.at/2000033533918/Kriegsmuedigkeit-eroeffnet-Chance-auf-Jemen-Gespraeche
Kommentar: Guter Überblick über die derzeitige Lage, es lohnt die vollständige Lektüre. Wie schon öfter, erscheint der beste Artikel zum Thema Jemen in der deutschsprachigen Presse beim österreichischen Standard.
24.3.2016 – Weserkurier (B K P)
Die Saudis und der Krieg im Jemen
Kommentar: Überblickartikel. Der Autor hat sich freilich z. T. seltsame Gewährsleute gesucht. Der Standpunkt „Vielleicht haben die Saudis sogar zu spät interveniert“ ist angesichts dessen, was die Saudis dort angerichtet haben, und angesichts ihrer wirklichen Ziele im Jemen, mit „verschroben“ von mir noch sehr freundlich bezeichnet. Es ist richtig, dass die Huthis im Hadramaut im Südosten des Jemen verhasst sind – wie alles, was aus dem Norden kommt, alles, was an eine Zentralregierung erinnert inklusive. Mit Al Qaida hat man dann dort offenbar weniger Probleme. Der Grund für diesen Hass auf die Huthis war auch sicher nicht das Scheitern politischer Trockenübungen der letzten drei Jahre in der Hauptstadt (die im Übrigen mit einem „demokratischen Prozess“ wie vom Gewährsmann behauptet, herzlich wenig zu tun hatten), sondern liegt viel tiefer, eben in der tiefen Spaltung des Landes zwischen Nord und Süd. Und mehr „Nord“ als die Huthis gibt es nicht im Jemen, nicht nur geographisch. Sehr vordergründig ist auch der Versuch, die Seeblockade herunterzuspielen – die Zahlen, wie sehr die notwenigen Importe eingebrochen sind, sind bekannt.
25.3.2016 – National Review (* B K P)
America’s Gulf State ‘Allies’ Have Created a Humanitarian Disaster in Yemen
Yemen’s civil war is the latest front in the Sunni–Shia intra-civilizational war and the fourth conflict in the Arab Middle East in which America has taken an active role.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and in the Middle East bedfellows can be very strange indeed. At a minimum, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Saudi coalition share a common enemy in Yemen, much as they share a common religious origin, Wahhabi Islam. The Saudis and their coalition allies regard Iran’s proxy, the Houthis, a more immediate threat than al-Qaeda or ISIS, and apparently an exaggerated threat at that. Put simply, Saudi Arabia made a strategic decision to overlook lesser threats (al-Qaeda, ISIS) in the short term to focus on the larger threat (Iran) over the long term. It is the sort of calculation the Saudis have made successfully for more than a century. In this obscurity of complex amities and enmities, the casual Westerner is quickly lost. The White House, however, should have known better. Indeed, it did know better.
It is a tragedy that an administration generally committed to peace in the Middle East will leave the Yemeni war as part of its Middle East legacy.
With the Yemeni civilian death tolls mounting, the White House is keen to keep its fingerprints off the wreck in Yemen. “This is not our war,” White House senior adviser Robert Malley recently told the New York Times. But it is America’s war, at least in part. James Ross of Human Rights Watch has asserted that, under international law, the United States is party to the conflict in Yemen. Some lawmakers on the Hill are also of this view.
The Saudi problem with violent extremism is that of holding the proverbial wolf by the ears. For more than a century, the House of Saud has played a dangerous game of alternatively cultivating and then shunning extremists. One day they will be too clever by half. America is also holding a wolf by the ears: its putative allies in the Gulf. Malley’s contention that Yemen is “not our war” is more wishful thinking than reality. No doubt the administration did not foresee a protracted conflict with thousands more Muslim deaths, or murdered nuns, and is likely hoping that the meddlesome conflict in Yemen simply goes away. – by Andrew Doran
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433253/yemen-war-nuns-missionaries-charity-saudi-arabia-united-states-obama-isis-al-qaeda
24.3.2016 – Your Middle East (* B P)
Yemen’s forgotten journalists
The lack of good, reliable information is so acute that some Yemeni expatriates and locals follow the news about their homeland on social media – such as Whatsapp – “whenever the line connection works,” said Nada al-Qabili, 20, a Yemeni-Russian scholar at the Middle East Partnership Initiative in Beirut. Al-Qabili said her family in Yemen is her main information source; they report what they hear and see, along with a heavy dose of unverified rumors and opinions from their neighbors.
As unsatisfying as these reports may be, they are often what Yemenis have to rely on because “the media channels that have access to areas of conflict do not display the full picture,” said Walid R. Beshr, a Yemeni student in Cairo. They “are biased to either side of the conflict when they have to write for local publications, or forced to censor part of what they know.”
The restrictions on press freedom hurt journalists, but ultimately deprive ordinary citizens of independent, crucial information – including news they may need to protect their personal lives.
Some online citizen journalism efforts have sought to fill information gaps, but since only 20 percent of the population has Internet access in war-torn Yemen, as opposed to Egypt or Syria’s more developed telecommunications system under their revolutions, their reach is limited. Electricity blackouts are another problem. Al-Qabili said that when she was home in Yemen last summer, “I used to take my laptop to a hotel in our street. The owner knew someone in the black market, so he was able to get some fuel for the hotel’s generators.”
At least one Western citizen has also tried to fill the information gap. Judith Brown, a former UNHCR aid worker in Yemen who now lives in UK, has created Yemen News Today, an op-ed website and a news aggregation FB page devoted to Yemen news.
“I am nearly 70 and not good at social media,” Brown said in an interview. But a neighbor helped her set up the Facebook page, at the beginning aimed to raise awareness among a Western audience. However, today it is mostly used by Yemenis who try to unravel rumors about their country. “I now have more Yemenis following my page as I aggregate news about Yemen from global media,” said Brown. “If I am late posting, I get messages from Yemen asking why haven't I posted yet. I didn't expect that.” – by Stefania D’Ignoti
http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/culture/yemens-forgotten-journalists_39819
24.3.2016 – Amnesty International (B H K)
365 Days of War in Yemen
Civilians bear the brunt of the violence in Yemen. As well as causing the deaths and injuries of civilians, the conflict has exacerbated an already severe humanitarian crisis resulting from years of poverty and poor governance causing immense human suffering.
At least 83% of Yemenis today rely on some form of humanitarian assistance in order to survive.
Coalition forces have imposed a partial aerial and naval blockade on areas under Huthi control to cut off supplies. This is severely limiting the import and provision of fuel and other essentials, obstructing access to food, water, humanitarian assistance and medical supplies and causing food prices to soar, creating a desperate situation for millions of people.
“My son was 14 hours old when he died… the doctors told us he needed intensive care and oxygen…We took him to every hospital we possibly could before he finally died. I wanted to take him outside the city but there was no way out.”
-Mohamed, father of new born baby who died due to shortages of oxygen in Tai’z in December 2015
Damage to key logistical infrastructure, including bridges, airports and seaports, has also severely hampered the movement of crucial humanitarian supplies.
The Huthi armed group and allied forces have endangered the lives of thousands of civilians in the southern city of Ta’iz by blocking the entry of crucial medical supplies and food in recent months. Most of the city’s hospitals were forced to shut down, and the few that remain open have been on the verge of collapse due to a lack of supplies (with image show)
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/middle-east/69796/
Comment: Overview article.
24.3.2016 – Save the Children (B H K P)
UNHAPPY ANNIVERSARY: A YEAR OF SUFFERING IN YEMEN
Our staff on the ground report trauma is widespread. And a de facto blockade, which has only recently begun to ease, has left 21.2 million people – almost half of them children – in need of humanitarian assistance.
Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, but you wouldn’t know it. Media coverage is scant and public awareness low, which makes trying to change the situation very hard.
Speaking out to end the blockade
Our early campaign efforts focused on showing the impact of the shipping blockade at Hodeidah port which was in place for much of 2015.
Since Yemen imports the majority of its food, fuel and medical supplies, the blockade pushed much of the country to the brink of famine.
We raised the issue with 70% of MPs, thanks to the efforts of a small group of highly engaged campaigners from across the country. By the end of 2015, the blockade had begun to ease following international pressure on Saudi Arabia, from the UK government and others.
However, in spite of this progress, food insecurity remains at the highest level the country has yet seen. Things are likely to deteriorate further unless the conflict ends.
The way in which war has been waged is also a cause for concern. There have been mounting reports of indiscriminate attacks targeting civilians and non-military buildings. Hundreds of schools and hospitals have been closed, and close to 2.5 million people have been displaced.
Our campaign set out to highlight the UK government’s contradictory position: on the one hand delivering aid to Yemen, and on the other supplying arms to the Saudi government.
Progress on UK arms exports
Throughout the campaign, the UK government has defended the actions of its ally, Saudi Arabia, refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing. This position has become increasingly isolated.
Despite mounting momentum, there is still a long way to go. For as long as children continue to suffer in Yemen, Save the Children will fight for their protection, with the help of our passionate and committed supporters.
We are now calling on the UK government to support an international investigation into violations of the rules of war, and immediately suspend the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia.
http://blogs.savethechildren.org.uk/2016/03/unhappy-anniversary-a-year-of-suffering-in-yemen/
24.3.2016 – The Guardian (B P)
Yemen one year on: Still the forgotten war
The conflict in Yemen has claimed the lives of over 3,000 civilians, yet media coverage of the war is severely lacking
Comment: Overview article which succeeds in not even mentioning the Saudi aerial war and stressing the Emirates just as the greatest donor of humanitarian aid.
24.3.2016 – Press TV Iran (A T)
US pretends fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen: Activist
Bukhaiti: We have a blockade for almost a year now and we have all Yemeni infrastructure, all Yemeni army bases, security forces, police stations, prisons have been targeted by the Saudi-led coalition. I mean targeting prisons as well is to free al-Qaeda militia. They targeted farms, wheat silos, everything that is considered to help Yemeni civilians and on the top of that they are supporting al-Qaeda and we see that the United Nations and its [envoy] in Yemen they are becoming as a political wing for the Saudi aggression in Yemen because all the truces that have been done through the UN through this war in Yemen, those truces have been used to invade Aden, to invade Ma’rib and Jawf and to invade part of Hajjah and to advance in some areas in Ta’izz and as well the UN envoy, the only thing he is asking from the Yemenis, he is asking them to free some officers like the former minister of defense who was caught in battle when he was side by side with the coalition and the only thing the UN is asking is to free him and to free others and this is what the Yemenis see that the UN is becoming a side of this aggression and as well they insist because the Saudi has failed militarily against Yemen.
The UN keeps insisting and keeps asking the Yemeni parties like Ansarullah and the GPC (the General People's Congress) to hold talks for peace in either Kuwait or Jordan or Morocco and those three countries are part of this aggression in Yemen and I think during history … across the world, we have never ever seen that one party will go to meet in another country who has started the war against them, but the UN, it is trying to help the Saudis to defeat Yemenis politically because they have failed to defeat us militarywise.
24.3.2016 – Human Rights Watch (* B H)
UN Human Rights Council: Human Rights Situation in Yemen
The High Commissioner has rightly condemned the repeated unlawful killing of civilians by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen airstrikes.
Since the beginning of the conflict a year ago, the Office of the High Commissioner has recorded a total of almost 9,000 casualties, including 3,218 civilians killed and a further 5,778 injured.
Civilians are being killed in Yemen on a depressingly regular basis – many by Houthi abuses, but the vast majority by airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition. These airstrikes have hit hospitals, schools, and market places. The UN Panel of Experts on Yemen, established under UN Security Council Resolution 2140 (2013), in a report made public on January 26, 2016, documented 119 coalition sorties that violated the laws of war.
For the past year, governments that arm and provide military assistance to Saudi Arabia, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom, have rejected or downplayed compelling evidence that the coalition’s airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians in Yemen.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other international and Yemeni groups have issued a joint statement calling for the cessation of sales and transfers of all weapons and military-related equipment to parties to the conflict in Yemen where “there is a substantial risk of these arms being used… to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law.”
By continuing to sell weapons to a known violator that has done little if anything to curtail its abuses, the US, UK, and France risk being complicit in unlawful civilian deaths.
But the rising civilian death toll resulting from the widespread, indiscriminate bombardment of Yemen is also the responsibility of every Human Rights Council Member State. Last September, the Council had the opportunity to create an international inquiry into violations and abuses by all parties to the conflict. It declined to do so, instead opting for a Yemeni-led national inquiry which could not credibly be expected to impartially investigate abuses by the very government that set it up.
To no-one’s surprise, the High Commissioner reports no real progress in the conduct of investigations. To no-one’s surprise, there has been no meaningful change in the Saudi-led conduct of the bombing campaign since that weak September resolution.
International scrutiny can save lives. We reiterate our call for the Human Rights Council to create an international mechanism to investigate alleged serious violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of international human rights law committed by all parties to the conflict in Yemen.
How many more Yemeni civilian lives will be lost, how many more Yemeni homes, hospitals, schools destroyed, before this Council takes the action needed to fulfill its mandate and put an end to impunity?
https://www.hrw.org/de/node/288124
24.3.2016 – AFP (B K P)
A year into Yemen intervention, what has Saudi achieved?
A year after it launched air strikes in Yemen, a Saudi-led military coalition has failed to deal a decisive blow to Iran-backed rebels.
Analysts say that since air strikes were launched on March 26 last year, rebel resistance has been far more effective than expected and the weakness of Yemen's internationally recognised government has been exposed.
The Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies remain in control of large parts of Yemen including the capital Sanaa.
Charles Schmitz, a Yemen expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said the Huthis and allied forces loyal to former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh are far from defeated.
"The Huthi and Saleh forces have done relatively well given the circumstances," he said. "They have no air cover and no secure means of resupplying their arsenal yet they retain significant military power."
The Huthis "have proven adept at holding onto territory and colonising key state organs," said Jordan Perry, a Middle East and North Africa analyst at the Verisk Maplecroft consultancy.
"The coalition has been handicapped by a lack of technical expertise and battlefield experience," said Perry.
"The Saudis miscalculated the ability of the Hadi camp to govern liberated territory" and "Al-Qaeda took advantage," said Schmitz.
But a recent mediation effort that essentially stopped fighting along the Saudi-Yemeni border could provide "a glimmer of hope", Schmitz said.
"The Huthis need to pull back their forces, let go of the Iranians, and show... respect (to) Saudi security concerns," he said.
Still, Perry said the rebels are unlikely to withdraw from all the cities they have seized.
"The jewel in the Huthis' crown -- the capital Sanaa -- is not at imminent risk of takeover," he said.
Perry said a comprehensive and lasting peace settlement in Yemen was a "distant prospect", with "very limited" potential for power-sharing as "deep divisions will persist." – by Lynne al-Nahhas
https://www.yahoo.com/news/yemen-intervention-saudi-sees-few-gains-095025918.html = http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=75976
Comment: Apart from giving some overview, this article lists up the failure of the Saudi war. The statement of Schmitz is rather odd: "The Huthis need to pull back their forces, let go of the Iranians, and show... respect (to) Saudi security concerns." Why should they pull back their forces? Who else then also will pull back his forces? The Saudis, “president” Hadi? The Huthis need to “let go of the Iranians”, as just in propaganda they are Saudi proxies? And why should they “show... respect (to) Saudi security concerns”, as in security matters paranoia is ruling in Riyadh and for Yemen, the Saudis main goal is not own security, but simply supremacy?
Comment: Well Saudi Arabia threw everything at Yemen and achieved very little except death destruction and financial ruin for KSA as well as Yemen - and oh yes, it achieved a massive growth in the numbers of extremist Sunni militants including Al Qaeda, Islah and Daesh.
https://www.facebook.com/yemennewstodayenglish/posts/1116070128545477
23.3.2016 – Aljazeera (* A K P)
Yemen ceasefire: Yemenis share their war stories
One year after Yemen's civil war began, millions of people have been uprooted and are struggling to survive.
Al Jazeera recently spoke to four Yemenis, three of whom are internally displaced, about their stories and the challenges they have faced in their daily lives during the past year. Here is what they had to say: – by Saeed Al Batati
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/yemen-ceasefire-yemenis-share-war-stories-160323063925539.html
23.3.2016 – The Global Observatory (B K)
Despite Saudi Assurances, Yemen Set for Another Challenging Year
Saudi Arabia’s venture in its neighboring country has stretched longer than the Saudis themselves expected and left them with hefty financial burdens.
The Saudis have taken matters into their own hands by engaging in direct talks with the Houthis this month, for the first time since their intervention began. The talks resulted in a prisoner swap between both parties, a joint military team starting demining operations on the Saudi-Yemeni border, and a ceasefire, though this lasted only a few days. Nonetheless, the talks are a significant development since Houthi rebels have been the main military target for the Saudis and direct talks between the two were deemed unthinkable earlier in the conflict.
New talks are scheduled to take place mid-April 2016 in Kuwait, but doubts persist on whether the Yemeni parties will attend and if they will abide by UN-led outcomes. The lack of comparative UN influence in the country is highlighted by the fact that while it convinced Houthi rebels to free seven detainees in December 2015, local tribes were able to secure the release of 375 individuals in the same month. The tribes also played a role in the recent talks between the Saudis and Houthis, building on an indirect line of communication facilitated by Russia.
Greater involvement of Yemen’s traditional authority could therefore be in order to attempt to achieve a lasting peace in the country. Decisions by the powerful “seven tribes” surrounding Sana’a are at least expected to influence whether the Saudi-led coalition moves ground forces to the capital to take the fight to the Houthis there.
Despite recent announcements, the crisis in Yemen seems no closer to ending as the second year of the Saudi intervention approaches. Effective and inclusive peace talks remain vital to preventing bloodshed and relieving millions of Yemenis from suffering caused by political elites and armed rebels – by Waleed Alhariri
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2016/03/yemen-saudi-houthis-saleh-hadi/
Comment: Overview article.
23.3.2016 – Middle East Eye (B K P)
To save Yemen's children, stop arming belligerents: NGO report
The Saudi-led coalition has been responsible for a disproportionate number of child casualties in Yemen, report says
UN member states, including those on the Security Council, should stop providing arms to parties who are violating the laws of war in Yemen, Save the Children said in a bleak report on Wednesday.
"Influential governments, including some permanent members of the UN Security Council, have chosen to support military action, often directly through the approval of arms sales and the provision of other military support, instead of using their influence to help find a sustainable peace," the report said.
“The consequences have been devastating for Yemen’s children for whom the situation will only get worse unless meaningful action is taken now to end this devastating conflict,” the NGO added.
In a particularly troubling statistic, civilians accounted for 93 percent of those killed or injured in explosive attacks in Yemen’s populated areas last year. Some 6,119 civilians were killed or injured by explosions in densely populated areas in the country in 2015.
n addition to the physical dangers children face in Yemen due to indiscriminate attacks, the conflict in Yemen has meant a halt in schooling for many students in the country.
“In addition to the 1.6 million children that were already not attending school prior to March 2015, a further 1.8 million children are now also being deprived of an education,” the report said.
With countless schools closed due to war damage, others being used as humanitarian shelters and still others occupied by armed groups, around half of Yemen’s population of school-aged children have been denied access to education.
“Prolonged absences from school will detrimentally affect the futures of Yemen’s children,” Save the Children said.
“It also means that they are more vulnerable to child protection risks including exploitation and abuse as they are not in the protective and regular environment that a school can provide.”
After highlighting widespread issues of malnutrition and lack of access to healthcare for Yemen’s children as well, the NGO called on all parties to redouble their efforts to find a peaceful solution to end the conflict.
22.3.2016 – Human Rights Watch (* A K P)
Q&A: Call for Arms Embargo on Saudi Arabia
Why is Human Rights Watch calling for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia?
Human Rights Watch’s call for suspending all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia comes after a year of documenting numerous unlawful airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that have taken a devastating toll on civilians. Instead of initiating investigations into alleged unlawful airstrikes as required by international humanitarian law, Saudi Arabia has consistently denied or minimized violations and obstructed international efforts to establish the facts. Of the more than 3,200 Yemeni civilians killed in the past year’s fighting, the United Nations estimates that the majority were caused by coalition bombing.
Human Rights Watch alone has documented 36 unlawful coalition airstrikes that have killed more than 550 civilians, including in markets, hospitals, and residential areas. These strikes either did not discriminate between civilians or combatants, or caused disproportionate civilian harm. Saudi Arabia alsocontinues to use cluster munitions, which are indiscriminate weapons that pose long-term dangers to civilians. They are prohibited by the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions adopted by 118 countries, though not Saudi Arabia or Yemen.
By calling for a full arms embargo against Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch seeks to deprive Saudi Arabia of the means to commit further laws-of-war violations in Yemen.
Why is Human Rights Watch only calling for an arms embargo against the Saudis when there are a coalition of nine countries involved in the Yemen conflict?
Saudi Arabia is the leading member of the coalition, the command control structure of the military campaign is in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and Saudi warplanes have played a predominant role in the campaign.
Information on the role of other coalition members in the airstrikes is limited. However, should more information become available on the role of other parties to the conflict, Human Rights Watch could expand its call for an embargo. In addition, Human Rights Watch would also oppose the sale or provision of weapons to other coalition members that are likely to be used in unlawful attacks or are banned, such as cluster munitions or anti-personnel landmines.
Is Human Rights Watch calling for a ban on weapons to the Houthis?
Human Rights Watch supports a ban on the sale or provision of weapons to the Houthis—also known as Ansar Allah—that are likely to be used unlawfully, notably unguided “Grad-type” rockets and anti-personnel landmines.
Why is Human Rights Watch calling for an arms embargo when the Yemeni government and Saudi Arabia have said they are investigating allegations of human rights violations?
There is no evidence that either Saudi Arabia or the Yemeni government are conducting credible and impartial investigations into alleged laws-of-war violations by coalition forces. And there have been no reports of any disciplinary or criminal actions being taken against coalition personnel for their role in unlawful airstrikes. As noted in our news release, the coalition military spokesman stated on January 31, 2016, that Saudi’s new committee to assess the coalition’s rules of engagement “is not to investigate allegations” but “to confirm the precision of the procedures followed on the level of the coalition command.”
Meanwhile, airstrikes killing civilians have continued: on March 16, at least 78 civilians were killed and more than 100 injured when three Saudi airstrikes hit a market in northern Yemen, according to media reports.
Instead of imposing an arms embargo, shouldn’t the US, UK and France be selling Saudi Arabia more accurate weapons to limit civilian casualties in Yemen?
Merely possessing more accurate weaponry does not ensure that weapons won’t be used in violation of the laws of war. Saudi Arabia already has high tech weapons in their arsenal and has used them in the fighting in Yemen. In addition, many of the unlawful airstrikes investigated by Human Rights Watch do not appear to have occurred because the weaponry used missed a valid military target and wrongly struck civilians – bombs often hit areas where there was no apparent military objective and no likely military targets nearby.
How do we know that the cluster munitions and other weapon remnants Human Rights Watch researchers have documented in Yemen are genuine and have not been planted?
Human Rights Watch researchers in Yemen collected evidence, including witness accounts, still photographs, videos, satellite images, and geo-spatial data, in the course of on-the-ground field investigations and remotely in areas where the risk of on-site visits was too great. The materials were analyzed and compared with evidence from a number of other sources including Amnesty International, international journalists, and by individual Yemeni citizens. This analysis included confirmation of the validity of the embedded metadata in images and video footage and geo-location of each location. Human Rights Watch also verified the identification of munitions and explosive remnants of war with independent international demining experts and armament research specialists. Using this methodology, Human Rights Watch has been able to alert the international community to the threat posed, for example, by unsecured weapons depots in Libya, the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and the widespread use of cluster munitions in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Since March 2015, Human Rights Watch has recorded incidents involving six types of air-dropped and ground-launched cluster munitions in multiple locations in at least five of Yemen’s 21 governorates: Amran, Hajja, Hodaida, Saada, and Sanaa. These cluster munitions were produced mostly in the United States, but also include a cluster munition produced and exported by Brazil. These weapons included the newest type of cluster munition made in the US, which has never been used in combat, as well as cluster munitions made in the 1970 and 1980s. There is little probability that a group currently operating in northern Yemen, such as the Houthis, could obtain, transport, and display such a diversity of armed unexploded submunitions and remnants of their distinct delivery systems at such geographically separated locations.
What weapons sold by foreign countries have you documented being involved in unlawful airstrikes in Yemen?
On-the-ground investigations by Human Rights Watch researchers have documented the use of unguided air-dropped bombs, guided bombs such as Paveway-series laser guided, JDAM satellite guided including the BLU-109 “bunker buster” version, and a variety of types of cluster munitions. These weapons were produced and exported by the United States and a number of European countries including France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In addition to these munitions, these same countries have sold attack aircraft such as ground-attack jet and helicopters that deliver these weapons to Saudi Arabia.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/22/qa-call-arms-embargo-saudi-arabia
23.3.2016 – UN Dispatch (B K P)
ONE WAY TO STOP THE UNRELENTING DEATHS OF CIVILIANS IN YEMEN? AN ARMS EMBARGO ON SAUDI ARABIA
The conflict in Yemen may not routinely make headlines around the globe. But it is grueling on, and increasingly becoming an ugly conflict in which the basic laws of war are routinely ignored. The worst offender is Saudi Arabia, which is leading a multi-national coalition that is ceaselessly pummeling Yemen with airstrikes that kill an inordinate number of civilians. Those all those bombs that are falling on schools, hospitals, homes and businesses are more likely than not made in the USA and Europe.
But now, there is a growing chorus to put the breaks on the Saudi-led assult on Yemen by denying them the weapons they need to carry out these strikes.
In a report this week, Human Rights Watch called on for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia.
The conflict in Yemen is part of a broader regional competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Houthi rebels are perceived by Saudi Arabia to be supported by Iran. Meanwhile, the USA has been backing Saudi Arabia in Yemen, principally over the White House’s need to appease Saudi Arabia, over the recent nuclear deal with Iran.
Now a year into the conflict, the indiscriminate and deadly attacks on civilians have only increased in frequency and destruction.
It isn’t only human rights groups that are speaking out against American complicity in what seems to be an unwarranted and barbaric war.
Civilian deaths are sometimes an unavoidable outcome in war. But the basic laws of war require combatants to take precautions and minimize the risk to non-combatants. As it is becoming increasingly clear that Saudi Arabia is not living up to its obligations, those who are supporting this military campaign may bear some liability.
Comment: Overview article. “Civilian deaths are sometimes an unavoidable outcome in war.” – this is a sort of minimalism hardly to agree with. This sentence just shows that EVERY war simply is a crime.
20.3.2016 – The Wolfian (B K P)
Lead article in The Wolfian 7 is on #Yemen by @julie_maxon
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1095137479 and http://www.amazon.com/Wolfian-issue-7-Jay-Wolfe/dp/1530627184
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
Siehe auch “Am wichtigsten” / See also “Most important”
25.3.2016 – Telepolis (* B H K)
Jemen: Es droht eine akute Hungerkrise
Die Vereinten Nationen und Oxfam weisen auf den "vergessenen" Konflikt hin, die Versorgung der Menschen werde durch eine Finanzkrise und mangelnde Spendenbereitschaft weiter gefährdet
Seit einem Jahr bombardiert nun Saudi-Arabien mit einer von der autoritären Monarchie geführten Allianz sunnitischer Staaten und der Unterstützung der USA, Großbritannien und Frankreichs Ziele im Jemen, eines der ärmsten Länder der Welt. Im Gegensatz zu Syrien ist Kritik aus dem Westen an dem Krieg aber kaum zu vernehmen: Syrien und Jemen: Die Schwarz-Weiß-Logik des Kalten Kriegs.
Durch den Krieg wurde die Situation für die Menschen drastisch verschlechtert. Nach Angaben der UN gibt es 1,8 Millionen Binnenflüchtlinge, 7,6 Millionen sind dringend auf Lebensmittelhilfen angewiesen. Das World Food Programm (WFP) der Vereinten Nationen sagt, 3 Millionen Menschen mit den Lebensmitteln monatlich versorgen zu können. Aber man habe nun die Lebensmittelrationen wegen unzureichender Finanzierung auf 75 Prozent kürzen müssen. Über 6000 Menschen sind getötet worden, die Hälfte Zivilisten.
Die Vereinten Nationen sprechen von einem "schrecklichen Jahr". Die Bombardierung von Häfen und Flughäfen, die zu Blockaden führt, ist eine der Gründe für die humanitäre Krise, sagt Jamie McGoldrick, UN-Koordinator für Jemen. Die UN habe zu Spenden in Höhe von 1,8 Milliarden US-Dollar für Lebensmittel, Wasser, medizinische Versorgung und Unterkunft aufgerufen, aber bislang nur 12 Prozent erhalten. Immer wieder kritisiert die UN Luftangriffe auf zivile Ziele wie Märkte, Krankenhäuser oder Schulen, bei denen viele Zivilisten sterben.
Oxfam berichtet aufgrund der neuen Angaben der Vereinten Nationen, dass wegen der Bombardierungen, Kämpfe und den Beschuss mittlerweile mehr als 21 Millionen Menschen, mehr als 80 Prozent der Bevölkerung, auf humanitäre Hilfe und mehr als 14 Millionen auf Lebensmittelhilfen angewiesen seien. Schon vor dem Konflikt war die Hälfte der Kinder unter 5 Jahren chronisch unterernährt. Die Organisation hat 250 Menschen im Nordwesten Jemens im Februar befragt und festgestellt, dass 60 Prozent Lebensmittel nur noch mit der Aufnahme von Schulden bezahlen können oder auf die Hilfe der Familie oder Nachbarn angewiesen seien. Das Geld gehe aus und die Preise steigen, viele sagen, sie könnten nicht mehr genug verdienen, die Armut nehme weiter zu.
Blockaden von Häfen und Importbeschränkungen haben zu steigenden Preisen von Lebensmitteln, aber auch von Benzin geführt. Mittlerweile seien 5 Häfen wieder offen, Ras Isa, Balhaf und Ash Shihr wären weiterhin wegen der herrschenden Unsicherheit geschlossen, Aden, der Haupthafen, sei weiter umkämpft. Aber auch wenn humanitäre Hilfe angeliefert werden könne, seien viele Gebiete, vor allem an der Grenze zu Saudi-Arabien, nur schwer zu erreichen. Mitarbeiter würden bedroht, an Kontrollen würden die Lebensmittellieferungen oft lange aufgehalten. Wegen der Kämpfe hätten viele Bauern und Fischer die Arbeit aus Sicherheitsgründen eingestellt.
Oxfam warnt, dass nun eine "akute Hungersnot" durch den Zusammenbruch der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion und eine Finanzkrise drohe, und spricht in von einer "unsichtbaren Nahrungsmittelkrise": "Ein Jahr nach Ausbruch des Konfliktes verweigern immer mehr internationale Banken Nahrungsmittelimporteuren die Kredite. Die jemenitische Zentralbank hat zunehmend Probleme, die Preise für Grundnahrungsmittel zu stabilisieren."
Das Land importiert nach Oxfam-Angaben 90 Prozent der Lebensmittel. Da die Währungsreserven der Zentral ausgehen, könne diese seit Februar keine günstigen Wechselkurse mehr für den Import von Zucker garantieren. Das drohe nun auch für Weizen und Reis. Die internationale Gemeinschaft wird aufgefordert, "den Finanzsektor des Landes und die lokalen Lebensmittelimporteure zu unterstützen. Zudem müssen alle Land-, See- und Luftwege nach Jemen offen gehalten werden, um eine durchgehende Lieferung von Nahrungsmitteln, Treibstoff und Medikamenten zu garantieren." – von Florian Rötzer
http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/47/47785/1.html
24.3.2016 – Oxfam (* A H)
Finanzkrise im Jemen verschärft humanitäre Krise
Nach einem Jahr des Krieges im Jemen kann die Zentralbank die Preise für Grundnahrungsmittel nicht mehr stützen. Oxfam weist in dem Bericht Yemen´s invisible food crisis darauf hin, dass Millionen Menschen eine akute Hungersnot droht.
Eine sich abzeichnende Finanzkrise droht die ohnehin schon katastrophale Ernährungssituation im Jemen weiter zu verschärfen. Ein Jahr nach Ausbruch des Konfliktes verweigern immer mehr internationale Banken Nahrungsmittelimporteuren die Kredite. Die jemenitische Zentralbank hat zunehmend Probleme, die Preise für Grundnahrungsmittel zu stabilisieren. Darauf weist Oxfam im heute veröffentlichten Bericht Yemen´s invisible food crisis hin.
Während des nun ein Jahr andauernden Konfliktes im Jemen haben bislang mehr als 6.100 Menschen ihr Leben verloren. 2,4 Millionen Menschen sind auf der Flucht, 21,2 Millionen Jemeniten – 82 Prozent der Bevölkerung – sind dringend auf humanitäre Hilfe angewiesen. Hinzu kommt eine bislang kaum beachtete Ernährungskrise. Die Zerstörung von Bauernhöfen und Märkten, eine weitgehende Abriegelung der Häfen und akuter Mangel an Treibstoff haben dazu geführt, dass rund ein Viertel der Bevölkerung in Gefahr steht, in eine Hungersnot zu geraten.
Weil sich die Währungsreserven der Zentralbank dem Ende neigen, garantiert diese seit Februar keine günstigen Wechselkurse mehr für den Import von Zucker. Nun verdichten sich Hinweise, dass dies auch für Weizen und Reis bevorsteht. Importeure berichten Oxfam, dass sie solche Grundnahrungsmittel dann kaum einführen könnten. Die Folge wäre eine weitere Verschärfung der bisherigen Nahrungsmittelknappheit und steigende Preise. Für ein Land, das 90 Prozent seiner Lebensmittel importiert, eine verheerende Entwicklung.
So verschlimmert die drohende Finanzkrise eine der schlimmsten humanitären Krisen unserer Zeit. Auch wenn die Welt davon kaum Notiz nimmt, so leiden bereits 14,4 Millionen Jemeniten an Nahrungsmittelknappheit. Die Mehrheit von ihnen wird in extreme Not getrieben, wenn das Finanzsystem kollabiert und dadurch die Preise für Lebensmittel explodieren.
Oxfam fordert die internationale Gemeinschaft auf, den Finanzsektor des Landes und die lokalen Lebensmittelimporteure zu unterstützen. Zudem müssen alle Land-, See- und Luftwege nach Jemen offen gehalten werden, um eine durchgehende Lieferung von Nahrungsmitteln, Treibstoff und Medikamenten zu garantieren.
https://www.oxfam.de/ueber-uns/aktuelles/2016-03-24-finanzkrise-jemen-verschaerft-humanitaere-krise
24.3.2016 – Kurier (B H)
80 Prozent der Bevölkerung im Jemen brauchen humanitäre Hilfe
Ein Jahr nach dem Beginn des Krieges benötigen 80 Prozent der Bevölkerung in Jemen dringend humanitäre Hilfe. Mehr als 14 Millionen Menschen sind auf Nahrungsmittelhilfe angewiesen, wie die Hilfsorganisation Care Österreich am Donnerstag in einer Aussendung mitteilte.
Hilfsorganisationen hätten aufgrund der bisher anhaltenden Kämpfe nur begrenzten Zugang zu den Menschen in Not. Ein Bündnis von mehr als 40 Hilfsorganisationen, darunter Care, fordern deshalb ein sofortiges Ende der Gewalt sowie eine nachhaltige politische Lösung
24.3.2016 – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (A B H)
Yemen: Humanitarian Dashboard (January - February 2016)
The opening of 2016 has seen casualty figures mount to over 6,400 dead and 30,000 injured since violence escalated in March 2015. Some 21.2 million people are now in need of some form of humanitarian assistance and protection. This includes 14.4 million people unable to meet their food requirements, 19.4 million who lack clean water and sanitation, and 14.1 million without adequate healthcare. At least 2.7 million have fled their homes.
The severity of needs are, in large part, due to the disregard, by all parties to the conflict, to their responsibilities under international humanitarian and human right law. Civilians continue to suffer.
Despite the increasing security risks and administrative hurdles, imposed by all parties to the conflict on humanitarian action, humanitarians continue to bravely assist people across Yemen’s 22 Governorates
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-dashboard-january-february-2016 and dashboard: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Yemen_Humanitarian_Dashboard_%28Jan-Feb%29.pdf
24.3.2016– UN Women (*A H)
Dodging bombs and building trust in Yemen
A day in the life of Dina Zorba, Head of Office for UN Women in Yemen
Sana’a, Yemen—It’s 6 a.m. and the sound of airstrikes startle her awake. She rushes to the window, which is shielded in plastic to protect the 110 staff living in this UN compound from shrapnel. She breathes a sigh of relief.
“At the beginning it was very scary,” says Dina, a long-time gender equality activist, originally from Jordan. She worked for many years in Iraq and is no stranger to conflict. “After a while you get to know the sounds. You can estimate the distance.”
Airstrikes happen daily.
She says one of the biggest challenges she faces in her work is diffusing the anger and mistrust.
“Now Yemenis don’t trust each other and they don’t trust us. So our work on integrating women in the peace process is really hard because they need to sit together.”
Gradually nurturing an environment for women to meet and reach common ground—by organizing workshops and facilitating dialogue in neutral spaces—Dina’s team helped establish a Women’s Pact for Peace and Security in October 2015. With 50 members and growing, has succeeded in ensuring that women are involved in the peace process, that the women’s agenda is included, and that neither will be sidelined.
On the drive home, Dina reflects on her mission. Despite the security risks, emotional tribulations and political challenges, she finds comfort in knowing UN Women is making a difference through the changes she sees.
“Of course there are days when there are setbacks,” she admits. “Sometimes it really hurts because you can’t fix it. We need the people to fix it. I’m not the decision-maker; I’m here to help them decide.”
“This is what keeps me going—even if it’s teeny-tiny. You know that [your results] are not simple and they’re not small. They’re the blocks that are going to lead to the big thing.”
http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2016/3/dodging-bombs-and-building-trust-in-yemen
24.3.2016 – Sky News (* A P)
Concerns Raised About UK's Role In Yemen War
Quiet and shy, Mohamed only perked up when he started talking about football and his love for Real Madrid. His legs are completely burnt and deformed and doctors say he will never walk again let alone play football.
Abdul Bari Faqih, a Yemeni driver, is another one of the 30,000 people that have been injured in this war. He was transporting gas cylinders when a missile struck his car in a residential area in the capital.
"The day the strike hit I felt it, I heard it. I heard parts of the car being blown away," he told Sky News.
"All I could see was fire all around me. I said, 'Oh God please forgive me, give me mercy from this fire'.
"I said the death prayer and asked God to accept me into heaven."
The Arab world's poorest country is on its knees, facing starvation and collapse as the international community continues not just to ignore but to fuel this conflict – by Sherine Tadros
http://news.sky.com/story/1666516/concerns-raised-about-uks-role-in-yemen-war
23.3.2016 – Press TV Iran (* B H)
87 million kids at risk of brain damage in conflict zones: UNICEF
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, says some 87 million children under the age of seven are growing up in conflict zones across the world, in conditions that can adversely affect their brain development.
Exposure to extreme trauma may hinder the development of brain cell connections, essential for health, emotional well-being and ability to learn, UNICEF said in a statement on Thursday,
The statement said that extreme trauma puts children at risk of living in a state of toxic stress with lifelong consequences for their cognitive, social, and physical development.
The agency further noted that brain development during the first seven years of life largely depends on breastfeeding, learning opportunities, and a chance to grow up in a safe environment.
“In addition to the immediate physical threats that children in crises face, they are also at risk of deep-rooted emotional scars,” said Pia Rebello Britto, chief of Early Child Development program at UNICEF.
“Conflict robs children of their safety, family and friends, play and routine…Yet these are all elements of childhood that give children the best possible chance of developing fully and learning effectively, enabling them to contribute to their economies and societies, and building strong and safe communities when they reach adulthood,” she added.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/03/24/457285/UNICEF-conflict-zone-children-brain-development/
24.3.2016 – Sydney Morning Herald
Airstrike destroys 2.5 million-egg hatchery in Yemen amid fears of famine
A bombed chicken farm, destroying a 2.5-million egg hatchery, has led to alarming warnings of an impending famine in Yemen as food supplies are increasingly a target.
Coastal fishing boats have also been destroyed, crippling the fishing industry, as the conflict in the Middle East nation spills into a second year and shows few signs of abating.
Aid agency Oxfam has warned Yemenis are being forced to scrounge for food, with four markets bombed this month alone.
Pleas for emergency relief funds have also gone unfulfilled.
Ms Hutton Oxfam] said the most recent fighting has forced locals to borrow money to buy food, leaving people vulnerable and credit drying up.
It is also feared the central bank in Yemen will soon stop credit guarantees for importing wheat and other staples, with the country depending on imports for approximately 90 per cent of its food supply.
Wheat prices have spiked more than 50 per cent since January in areas such as Hajjah, north-west of the capital, Oxfam warns.
Food shipments have been blockaded as a result of the conflict, with a shortage of seeds as what should be the planting season looms. Foreign currency is also becoming scarce.
The aid group surveyed more than 250 people across Hajjah in February and found families feeding children before adults, with many forced to forage for food – by Daniel Flitton
Comment: Overview article on the humanitarian situation.
23.3.2016 – UNICEF (B H)
Der 17-jährige Rafik aus dem Jemen hat sein rechtes Bein bei einem Bombenangriff verloren. Sein bester Freund überlebte den Angriff nicht. Der Konflikt im Jemen dauert an. Mittlerweile wünscht sich Rafik nur Frieden und ein Ende der Gewalt in seinem Land.
Hier spielt er bei einem UNICEF-Fußballturnier an der Al Zubairi Schule in Sana’a mit.
23.3.2016 – UNICEF (* B H)
KONFLIKT IM JEMEN: 10 MILLIONEN KINDER BRAUCHEN DRINGEND HILFE
FAMILIEN HABEN KAUM ZUGANG ZU WASSER
Khalid ist 17 Jahre alt und berichtet uns von dem Angriff auf seine Schule. An diesem Tag starb sein guter Freund Majed durch eine Rakete. Für Khalid ist das Gefühl von Sicherheit seitdem nicht mehr vorhanden. So wie Millionen betroffene Kinder im ganzen Land will er einfach nur Frieden.
"Die Hoffnung aufgeben bedeutet, einen langsamen Tod zu sterben" sagt Khalid. Das ist auch die Meinung vieler anderer Flüchtlingskinder, die nicht aufgeben wollen, sondern Schutz und Unterstützung suchen, um zu überleben. Durch die andauernde Gewalt ist die Gesundheitsversorgung im Land zusammengebrochen. Es fehlt an Medikamenten, an Lebensmitteln und an sauberem Trinkwasser.
Julien Harneis, der Leiter von UNICEF im Jemen, warnt vor einem erhöhten Risiko von Krankheiten: „Die humanitäre Lage verschlechtert sich fortlaufend, mit immer begrenzterem Zugang zu Wasser, grundlegender Hygiene und essentiellen Gesundheitsdiensten.“
Helfen Sie den Kindern im Jemen!
UNICEF ist vor Ort und versorgt die Kinder im Jemen mit Trinkwasser, impft Mädchen und Jungen und hilft im Kampf gegen Mangelernährung
https://www.unicef.de/informieren/projekte/-/jemen-krieg/75274 und Khalids Film hier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgCQ6Tbrofo
23.3.2016 – Reuters (A H)
Looming fiscal crisis could worsen food crisis in Yemen, Oxfam says
Signs of a domestic financial crisis are raising the specter of famine in conflict-ridden Yemen, where millions of people already are going hungry, Oxfam said on Thursday.
The possibilities of tightening credit and a currency devaluation threaten the Arab Peninsula's poorest nation, which imports nearly all its food and needs a functioning economic system to fund those shipments, the global charity said in a report.
Half of the nation's residents, or nearly 14.4 million people, already struggle to buy food and need assistance in a crisis going largely unheeded in the international' class="itxtrst itxtrstimg itxthookicon" v:shapes="itxthook1icon"> community, it said.
"An invisible food crisis ... risks turning famine warnings into a reality over the coming months," Oxfam said.
Yemen imports roughly 90 percent of its food, it said.
The shortages stem in part from nervous markets following reports that Yemen's Central Bank may cut credit lines that guarantee payment class="itxtrst itxtrstimg itxthookicon" v:shapes="itxthook2icon"> for incoming wheat and rice cargoes, the report said.
Threats to Yemen's currency, the riyal, reportedly at risk of devaluation, also could cause food prices to rise, it said.
Already impoverished Yemenis "will not be able to withstand the rising prices for food if importers are unable to trade," said Sajjad Mohamed Sajid, Oxfam's country director in Yemen, in a statement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-food-idUSKCN0WQ011
Comment: With so many factories destroyed - including food and drink factories - and so much infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, universities, roads, and bridges destroyed how on earth can Yemen get back to normal - to say nothing about the growth of extremist Sunni militias such as Al Qaeda, Islah and Daesh that have been allowed to grow without restraint during this disgusting war. So how are people going to be able to eat?
https://www.facebook.com/yemennewstodayenglish/posts/1116064568546033
24.3.2016 – Oxfam (** B H )
Yemen: all we can do is help people survive
As much as I may not like waking in the middle of the night to the sound of bombing, the house and windows shaking, it's nothing compared to what people are facing in their own homes. As fighting in Yemen intensifies, spending the early hours of the day in a safe room gives us all plenty of time to think about the challenges of the day.
Last month I visited an 11 tonne water tank that Oxfam had installed. It hasn't worked since October when fighting left six bullet holes in it, rendering it useless for the task of providing water to the 250 families living in the camp around it.
I work as a public health and community mobilisation coordinator. My job is to support our teams to work with communities to understand their needs and how Oxfam can help them.
Now, almost a year since the conflict started, we work with communities to help them ensure they have water. We also help to improve sanitation in the towns, villages and camps that we work in. Sometimes it feels insurmountable, but we help communities deal with it in the best way that they can.
Water and food needs were huge before the war escalated. Now the damage caused by all sides in the conflict has set us back years, or even decades (see Oxfam's new briefing on Yemen's Invisible Food Crisis). In just 12 months we have reached a point where all we can really do is help people survive the war. Nothing more, just survive it.
Those who were a little better off and have been helping their friends and family, hosting them in their homes, are starting to lose their ability to cope. In some areas we find people who can barely feed their own family, let alone support others.
The shortage of fuel in Yemen means the cost of providing lifesaving drinking water has shot up to unsustainable levels; it now costs 175,000 US dollars a month to deliver water to 15,000 homes in the province of Amran alone. For aid agencies it's becoming unaffordable to maintain this help.
In communities without water networks, bringing water by truck was commonplace before the conflict, but the cost of even a jerry can has now tripled. The lack of power means that the water systems in cities have ground to a halt, generators used to pump the water from boreholes but now the fuel is too expensive.
Waste management used to be run by the cities' Cleaning Fund, often supported by large local factories. In the city of Amran the cement factory that used to provide incentives for the waste collection was bombed and closed down. Fuel is also needed to operate the trucks that pick up the rubbish.
The cost of fuel means that even food cannot be delivered, and people can hardly eat even with food vouchers that Oxfam provides. Families are left burning plastic bottles and rags in order to cook what little food they have.
Getting the right materials and moving supplies to the most devastated areas are 'normal' challenges in a humanitarian context. Whether it is conflict, droughts or earthquakes, we're used to being blocked, but I've never faced challenges like this.
Oxfam managers spend most of their days negotiating. We negotiate to reach people displaced by fighting; we try to persuade officials to release relief supplies stuck in Hodeida port for months; we have to negotiate with landowners to build latrines on their land where people live in ramshackle shelters.
Access to people in the city of Taiz is only possible through our partner organisations living within the besieged city. But these partners are also trapped, unable to move in and out of the city freely. International donors require that we have original contracts and signed documents to implement projects, but this is simply not feasible. We've negotiated the terms so we can send photocopies and scans instead.
Leaving the capital recently, I left bright and early, feeling rested after a night without interruptions. We got to the outskirts of the city and then I saw the destruction. "There," a man pointed, "that was my neighbour, the airstrike hit last night and killed seven people. My neighbour and his wife are dead and their children in hospital. I spent the night holding my children and praying for safety."
This is daily life for those living in many areas of the country. It's tough work but we have to keep negotiating for a better kind of survival – by Simone Carter, Public Health Promoter & Community Mobiliser
http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/blog/2016/03/yemen-all-we-can-do-is-help-people-survive
Donate: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/emergency-response/yemen-crisis and by Newsweek: http://europe.newsweek.com/yemen-famine-one-year-war-439651?rm=eu
23.3.2016 – Reuters (A H)
Famine threatens half of Yemen - WFP
Aid groups have blamed curbs imposed by the Saudi-led coalition on access to Houthi-controlled ports for the crisis and also accuse Houthis of preventing supplies from reaching some areas, including the city of Taiz in the southwest.
"From a food security perspective, 10 of Yemen's 22 provinces are classified as emergency, which is one step before famine," Adham Muslim, deputy director of the WFP office in the capital Sanaa, said as the agency launched a food voucher program to help the most needy.
Fighting over the past year has displaced about 2.3 million people and left more than half of Yemen's 26 million population in need of food aid, Muslim said.
"This means that we must not wait until the situation reaches famine but must act now to provide humanitarian aid directly," Muslim said.
To counter the food crisis, the WFP has launched a program of emergency food vouchers to provide up to one million people with basic needs eventually.
In Sanaa, which is still under Houthi control, hundreds of people queued for hours to register for the vouchers. Under the programme a family of six receives wheat grain, pulses, vegetable oil, salt and sugar provided by the WFP through a local supplier.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2016/03/23/Famine-threatens-half-of-Yemen---WFP
22.3.2016 – World Bank (* B H)
Yemen: so critically short of water in war that children are dying fetching it
Before the ongoing war, Yemen was already among those countries facing the most serious water shortages: experts warned that its groundwater would be depleted by 2017. The war has greatly exacerbated the situation as, along with instability, the absence of government, and spread of armed conflicts, the arbitrary pumping of groundwater has increased while government utilities like water supplies have collapsed.
Previously, Yemen’s Ministry of Water said a law prohibited the arbitrary drilling of wells. This was enforced by the security services and local councils; a permit had to be obtained before any well could be drilled. But the instability of the past year has led to chaos, and a large number of wells have been drilled in many regions.
The city of Ta’iz in southern Yemen is one of the hardest hit areas. Piped water used to flow into people’s homes only once every 40 days. After the war began in March 2015, the state water utility stopped pumping water to people’s homes altogether. As a result, despite the armed conflicts, hundreds of small children in Ta’iz leave their homes to bring water back in jerry cans. The water, referred to as “street water”, is often provided by mosques or charities or civil organizations. Many children have been killed or injured in fighting as they leave their homes in search of water.
Reports by international organizations confirm that Ta’iz is suffering from a severe and protracted water crisis, which has become even more severe as a result of the armed conflicts in the city.
Ta’iz’s residents have no water or electricity, according to a report by the Humanitarian Relief Coalition in Ta’iz. And the 1.6 million people in Ta’iz governorate are in need of emergency provisions of drinking water. According to local activists, the price of water brought in by tanker trucks has increased threefold; the trucks require four or five days to deliver the water throughout the city. The report adds that the city’s residents depend for their drinking water on relief assistance provided by local and international organizations, which distribute water in the neighborhoods using cistern trucks – by Farouk Al-Kamali
http://blogs.worldbank.org/arabvoices/yemen-so-critically-short-of-water
Comment: In other parts of the country, the situation is not better. For instance, in Saada province, at some places the groundwater level already had fallen from 12m to 1000 m, and water only could be pumped by motor pumps. The fuel now missing due to the Saudi blockade, and several water wells also having been bombed by the Saudi coalition, the situation has got even worse.
22.3.2016 – FAO (B H)
Yemen crisis - Situation report 22 March 2015
FAO activated a Level 3 Emergency Response in Yemen on 14 July 2015 given the urgent need to scale up its response to the large-scale impacts of the crisis on food security and nutrition. A Humanitarian System-Wide Level-3 Emergency has been active since 1 July 2015.
14.4 million people – more than 50 percent of the population – are food insecure: a 36 percent increase since September 2014.
Food security is expected to further deteriorate with the escalation of conflict and insecurity, unless the affected populations’ access to food and income improves dramatically.
An Emergency Food Security and Nutrition Assessment covering 20 governorates – to be conducted by FAO, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme in close collaboration with relevant national institutions and ministries – is pending necessary clearances in order to be launched.
FAO seeks USD 25 million within the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan 2016 to:
- provide livelihood inputs and support for crop production, backyard gardening, poultry raising, livestock production and health, and fisheries;
- increase water supply for farming purposes, including the distribution of solar water pumps, rehabilitation of water infrastructure (e.g. wells, canals, cisterns and reservoirs) and support to water users’ associations;
- implement cash and voucher transfer based activities and support income-generating activities linked to the production of food with high nutritional value, with a focus on women’s groups;
- assess, monitor and control transboundary plant and animal diseases and pests, including desert locust.
FAO’s appeal for 2016 is 20 percent funded thanks to contributions from the European Union, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and United States of America.
Increasing farming households’ resilience to food security threats will contribute to saving many lives. Emergency agricultural interventions are critical to preserving household food production – an increasingly vital lifeline, especially in hard to reach areas where aid access is limited – as well as income generation.
http://www.fao.org/emergencies/resources/documents/resources-detail/en/c/396280/ and in full http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/emergencies/docs/FAO%20Situation%20Report%20_%20Yemen%20_%2022%2003%2016.pdf
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
25.3.2016 – Stratfor (A P)
Peace Talks Invite Even More Factions to Yemen
What happens on March 26, the anniversary of Saudi airstrikes against Houthi rebels, will shed more light on the fraying alliance between the Houthis and Saleh. To commemorate a full year of airstrikes, two competing rallies will occur: one in the morning, led by Saleh's General People's Congress party, and one after working hours, led by the Houthis. Separate rallies suggest that the alliance of convenience that has held the Houthis and Saleh loyalists together in defense of Sanaa is cracking. The Houthis have even reportedly warned civil servants in the capital that March 26 is a working day, pre-emptively expressing disapproval of the morning rally. Saleh has support from loyalists and his Republican Guard, but the Houthis have prevailed in direct dealings with Saudi Arabia, preserving their negotiating power as best they can.
https://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/peace-talks-invite-even-more-factions-yemen
24.3.2016 – Your Middle East (* B P)
Yemen’s forgotten journalists
Restrictions on press freedom in Yemen hurt journalists, but also deprive ordinary citizens of independent, crucial information – including news they may need to protect their lives, reports Stefania D’Ignoti.
At least eight journalists have been killed, and many more abducted, by Shia Houthi militias while covering the conflict in Yemen since the beginning of 2015, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Though the conflict in Yemen gets far less international press attention than Syria’s civil war, the dangers for journalists can be just as deadly. “There is little to no coverage by international media based in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a,” said Thuraya Dammaj, a Yemeni activist and journalist for the official Yemen news agency, Saba Net.
That’s because of the dangers, and the fact that the Houthi militia who have controlled Sana’a for a year and a half issue very few visas to foreign correspondents. “Foreign journalists are not allowed inside the country, let alone covering the conflict,” said Dammaj.
In addition to physical dangers, Yemeni journalists can face strong pressure from the conflict’s factions. “The Houthi militias have shuttered all means of media that are leaning toward their political opponents," said Dammaj. “Even Reuters was not spared. This makes it more difficult for journalists to obtain information from various news sources.”
As unsatisfying as these reports may be, they are often what Yemenis have to rely on because “the media channels that have access to areas of conflict do not display the full picture,” said Walid R. Beshr, a Yemeni student in Cairo. They “are biased to either side of the conflict when they have to write for local publications, or forced to censor part of what they know.”
For the journalists still trying to report on their homeland, “their situation is precarious, and journalism in Yemen these days usually rhymes with danger,” said CPJ’s Stern. According to Dammaj, Houthi militias have detained nearly a dozen journalists in unknown venues, and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militants are believed to have detained four more.
“The journalist kidnappings are not given a lot of attention because there are much more pressing and important issues” in the Yemen conflict, said Anita Kassem, 24, a researcher with the Berghof Foundation, an NGO working on sustainable peace through conflict transformation – by Stefania D’Ignoti
http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/culture/yemens-forgotten-journalists_39819
Comment: On the other side, the Saudis are brilliant at bombing Yemeni TV stations (killing journalists that way), TV towers, and urging on operators of TV satellites and of social media in the internet to cut down Yemeni TV senders, facebook users, youtube accounts they dislike.
cp7 UNO und Friedensgespräche / UN and peace talks
25.3.2016 – Stratfor (A P)
Peace Talks Invite Even More Factions to Yemen
For example, what will happen to Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's former president and a figure central to the conflict, during and after the negotiations? Two weeks ago, quiet talks between delegates of the Houthi insurgency and Saudi officials resulted in a border truce and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Houthi-controlled areas. It is very likely that the meeting also produced a deal — or the promise of a deal — that would cut Saleh, whose loyalist forces fought alongside the Houthis, out of the picture in Yemen's future. In exchange for laying down their arms, promising to keep Saudi border skirmishes to a minimum and respecting current President Abd Rabboh Mansour Hadi's rule, the Houthis would get relative sovereignty over their northern Saada province.
As the clock ticks for Saleh, the Yemeni government is discussing his safe departure from Yemen with outside parties, namely Oman and Russia. Oman did not want to host the freshly ousted president in 2012 for fear that doing so would hurt its relationship with Yemen's newly established Hadi government, which had the approval of the GCC. But four years later, providing refuge to Saleh would be a huge help to Hadi's government.
Iran would like to be involved in the negotiations to bolster its influence in Yemen.
Russia is a likely candidate to take Saleh, defusing tensions between the various factions involved in Yemen. Like the Syrian crisis, Yemen's war is a conflict wherein Saudi and Iranian interests collide, and Russia could be a mediator in its resolution. Generally, getting involved in conflicts like these affords Russia leverage in the country. Since Russia has no real interest in Yemen's politics or future direction, they could instead use the traction they would gain with Saudi Arabia to bend negotiations in Syria to their favor. Moreover, Saleh is a treasure trove of information on Middle Eastern dynamics, which could be invaluable to Moscow.
Yemen's conflict is a chessboard upon which global powers are playing. For Russia, having a piece on the board could be another way to shape the region's dynamics.
https://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical-diary/peace-talks-invite-even-more-factions-yemen
24.3.2016 – Fox News (A P)
UN Security Council urges 'constructive' Yemen talks in planned cease-fire
The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday called for Yemen's warring sides to engage in peace talks "in a flexible and constructive manner," while welcoming the announcement of a cease-fire set to take effect on April 10.
Comment: That is a strange proof of hypocrisy as three of the Council’s veto powers are those who have fuelled this war by various means and are the three main arm dealers selling arms to Saudi Arabia.
23.3.2016 – Deutsche Welle (A P)
Waffenruhe für Jemen vereinbart
Die Konfliktparteien im Jemen haben sich nach Angaben der Vereinten Nationen auf eine Waffenruhe verständigt, die ab 10. April gelten soll. Zudem sollen die Friedensgespräche wiederbelebt werden.
"Die Konfliktpartien haben sich auf eine landesweite Einstellung der Kampfhandlungen ab dem 10. April geeinigt", sagte der UN-Sondergesandte Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in New York. Zudem sei vereinbart worden, dass am 18. April in Kuwait die Friedensgespräche zwischen der jemenitischen Regierung und den Huthi-Rebellen wieder aufgenommen werden sollten. Nach ausführlichen Beratungen mit den Konfliktparteien habe er die Zusicherung erhalten, dass "alle Parteien" an den Friedensgesprächen teilnähmen. "Das ist wirklich unsere letzte Chance", sagte Ould Cheikh Ahmed. Der Krieg müsse beendet werden.
http://www.dw.com/de/waffenruhe-f%C3%BCr-jemen-vereinbart/a-19137347
23.3.2016 – Vice News (* A P)
UN Announces "Last Chance" Ceasefire in Yemen
After nearly a year of unrelenting carnage, the UN on Wednesday announced a "last chance" cessation of hostilities between Yemen's warring parties to start next month, and said it planned to convene peace talks shortly after – by Samuel Oakford
https://news.vice.com/article/un-announces-last-chance-ceasefire-in-yemen
Comment: Overview on the situation in the moment.
23.3.2016 – Aljazeera (A P)
UN: Yemen's warring parties agree to April 10 ceasefire
UN special envoy says new round of peace talks between rival sides in the conflict will begin in Kuwait on April 18.
Yemen's warring parties have agreed to a nationwide cessation of hostilities starting next month in an attempt to end the year-old conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people - half that total civilians.
The ceasefire will take hold at midnight on April 10, the UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said on Wednesday. A new round of peace talks between the rival sides will take place in Kuwait beginning on April 18, Ould Cheikh Ahmed added.
"This is really our last chance," Ould Cheikh Ahmed told reporters in New York. "The war in Yemen must be brought to an end."
The UN envoy said the face-to-face talks in Kuwait will focus on a series of issues, including the withdrawal of military forces, the handover of heavy weaponry, interim security arrangements, and the restoration of state institutions, Al Jazeera's Shihab Rattansi reported from UN headquarters in New York.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed said the talks aim to reach an agreement to end the conflict and allow the resumption of political dialogue leading to a peaceful transition based on a regional peace initiative.
He also said the parties have committed to reinforcing a committee overseeing the ceasefire with prominent Yemeni figures who will report on progress and security incidents.
Comment: Still a long, long way to April 10. How many more air raids? How many more martyrs?
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=992317780821252&id=961126490607048
23.3.2016 – UN (A P)
Statement of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, Mr. Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed
After active consultations with the President Hadi and Yemeni officials in Riyadh and the delegations of Ansar Allah and the General People’s Congress in Sana’a, I am pleased to announce today that the parties to the conflict have agreed to a nation-wide cessation of hostilities beginning at midnight on 10 April, in advance of the upcoming round of the peace talks, which will take place on 18 April in Kuwait. I am very grateful to his Highness Prince of Kuwait Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah for offering to host this new round of talks.
The talks aim to reach a comprehensive agreement, which will end the conflict and allow the resumption of inclusive political dialogue in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2216 (2015) and other relevant UNSC resolutions. The face-to-face negotiations will provide a mechanism for a return to a peaceful and orderly transition based on the GCC Initiative and National Dialogue outcomes.
The parties have committed to reinforce the De-escalation and Co-ordination Committee which will work to bolster adherence to the Cessation of Hostilities. Prominent Yemeni figures will be enlisted to cooperate with the Committee and report on progress and security incidents.
The Yemeni-Yemeni talks will focus on five main areas: 1) the withdrawal of militias and armed groups, 2) the handover of heavy weapons to the State, 3) interim security arrangements, 4) the restoration of state institutions and the resumption of inclusive political dialogue, in addition to 5) the creation of a special committee for prisoners and detainees. I have asked the parties to present concept papers on each of these areas by 3 April. During talks, we will establish committees to discuss each of these areas. These committees will cooperate and work independently to ensure progress.
In order to help Yemen preserve economic stability during this crisis, I have also pursued agreements which seek to preserve the functioning of key state institutions, such as the Central Bank, on which the Yemeni people depend. Preserving their functioning helps current service delivery to those who are in dire need, and will also facilitate a more expedient and efficient economic recovery after an agreement.
The upcoming cessation of hostilities must also seek to ensure that the parties allow safe, rapid and unhindered access for humanitarian supplies to all affected governorates, as well as the increased flow of commercial shipments in the coming weeks.
Finally, I call upon all parties to refrain from any action that could lead towards exacerbating tensions, in order to enable and pave the way for the cessation of hostilities.
http://www.un.org/sg/offthecuff/index.asp?nid=4432
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
24.3.2016 – Al Araby (A D)
Saudis boiling over exorbitant new water tariffs
Saudi Arabians have taken to social media to vent their frustrations after receiving their first water bills since the government began taxing water for residents to try and address the soaring cost of debt, as oil revenues decline.
Furious Saudis shared snapshots of their bills, some of which were as much as 3,000 percent higher than their previous bills, and demanded the government bring back the old prices.
The new water tariff comes amid warnings that Saudi Arabia's groundwater will run out in the next 13 years and intense pressure on the state to cut spending after the plunge of oil prices.
"Have they changed the type of water they pump to people? Or have they added vitamins? My bill has jumped from $8 to $265!" former football star Faisal Abu Thnain tweeted.
Lawyer Abdallah al-Otaibi shared an image of his latest bill worth a stunning $53,300.
Economist Abdul Hamid al-Amri said: "Most people agree we need to reprice water and electricity, however, the new water prices are unfair".
Other social media users called on the Minister of Water and Electricity, Abdallah al-Hussein, to step down after hetold local media that new bills were "half the price of one family member's mobile phone bill".
http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/society/2016/3/24/saudis-boiling-over-exorbitant-new-water-tariffs
Comment: A side effect of the high costs of the Yemen war. The Saudi just paying the price for their governments war policies.
23.3.2016 – Noto Wahabism (* B P)
Film: What Do ISIS & Saudi Arabia Have In Common?
https://www.facebook.com/NotoWahabism/videos/854797491315501/
22.3.2016 – PBS (** B P)
Film: Sentenced To Die In Saudi Arabia
Ali Nimr was just 17 when the Arab Spring reached Saudi Arabia in 2011, a country tightly controlled by its royal family. With all the enthusiasm of youth, Ali joined people in the streets calling for reform, his parents said.
But Ali wasn’t an ordinary protester. His uncle, the Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr Al Nimr, was considered the spiritual leader of the movement. To Saudi officials, he was a revolutionary with ties to their archrival, Iran. In 2012, Nimr was accused of inciting the uprising, arrested and imprisoned. Ali was detained as well, and charged with treason and sedition — words the boy told his father in a call from prison that he didn’t even understand.
In January 2016, Sheikh Nimr was executed along with 46 other Saudi prisoners. Now 21, Ali is still imprisoned, his fate uncertain. “I can feel the sword against his neck,” his father said. Follow Ali’s story in the video above – by James Jones
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/video/sentenced-to-die-in-saudi-arabia/
13.10.2014 – Gulf News (B P)
style='background-position-x:0px;background-position-y:0px' v:shapes="_x0000_i1033">Saudi cleric’s ‘sadistic’ tweet causes fury in Yemen
Al Wesal TV host praises suicide bombing that killed at least 47 Al Houthis
Saudi cleric and TV presenter Khalid Al Gamdi has incurred Yemenis’ wrath after expressing joy with graphic photos of dead Al Houthi protesters and praising the suicide bomber who killed them.
Posting on his Twitter account on October 9, the controversial cleric, who anchors a programme on the Saudi Al Wesal channel, urged followers on social media to rejoice over the sight of the dead victims.
“God is great. enjoy watching,” he said in a tweet referring to the pictures of some burnt and mangled bodies of Al Houthi children and men.
At least 47 Houthis protesters were killed in the Yemeni capital on Thursday morning when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt at a protest gathering.
Despite not commending Al Qaida militants who took credit for the deadly attack, Al Gamdi justified his stand by saying that Al Houthis are Shiites who are involved in killing Sunnis in Yemen.
Many people angrily reacted to his comments on social media.
However, some other Saudi clerics took a similar hard-line reaction to the Al Houthis capture of the Yemeni capital last month.
Abdul Aziz Al Terifi, a Saudi scholar, said on his twitter account last month that fighting the Al Houthis and other allied factions in Yemen is a religious “duty”.
However, this is not the first time Al Gamdi, who has almost 60,000 followers on Twitter, has caused fury in Yemen.
Weeks before Al Qaida’s attack on a military hospital in the capital last year, Al Gamdi appeared on TV encouraging Sunnis in Yemen to take revenge against government security forces who had allegedly abducted some injured religious students from the same hospital in Sana’a.
The students were injured in clashes with Al Houthi fighters in the Dammaj region of Saada province. Many in Yemen have said that Al Qaida picked up on Al Gamdi’s inciting his calls and carried out the attack that claimed the lives of as many as 50 people.
Comment: Well, that is “normal” Wahabism. We in the “West”, for them just being “kuffars”, like the Shiites are not worth living for them. That is standard “Saudi”, but we support them.
cp8a Brüssel: Terrorismus und Saudis / Brussels: Terrorism and Saudi
23.3.2016 – Washington Post (** A P T)
The Saudi origins of Belgium’s Islamist threat
Analysts point to the inroads made in Belgium by the more conservative, orthodox brand of Islam espoused by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is the consequence of actual policy. In 1978, the Saudi-backed Great Mosque of Brussels opened its doors; the elegant building and land where it sat had been a gift by Belgium’s then-king to his Saudi counterpart a decade prior.
It became the seat of Islamic activity in Belgium. A 2007 leaked U.S. diplomatic cable, published by the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks, detailed how the Saudi Embassy in Brussels has continued to provide Korans to myriad mosques in the country and help pay for the upkeep of the structures. Saudi Arabia also invested in training the imams who would preach to a growing Muslim diaspora in European countries, including in Belgium.
Observers say the Salafist dogma of the Saudi-funded clerics active in many mosques in Belgium stood in contrast to the traditional beliefs of the mostly working-class Moroccan and Turkish immigrants who first arrived in the country in the 1960s and 1970s.
“The Moroccan community comes from mountainous regions and rift valleys, not the desert. They come from the Maliki school of Islam, and are a lot more tolerant and open than the Muslims from other regions like Saudi Arabia,” George Dallemagne, a Belgian politician, told the Independent last year. “However, many of them were re-Islamified by the Salafist clerics and teachers from the Great Mosque. Some Moroccans were even given scholarships to study in Medina, in Saudi Arabia.”
The majority of the Belgian nationals who have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq are thought to be of Moroccan descent.
A separate WikiLeaks disclosure — this time of classified Saudi documents —found that in April 2012 the Belgian government quietly forced Saudi authorities to remove the main director of the Great Mosque, Khalid Alabri, a Saudi Embassy employee suspected of propagating the intolerant Sunni radicalism that is shared by the extremists of the Islamic State.
“Today, in Brussels, 95 percent of the courses offered on Islam for Muslims are operated by young preachers trained in Saudi Arabia,” Michael Privot, director of the Brussels-based European Network Against Racism, said in an interview with an Italian journalist. “There is a huge demand within Muslim communities to know about their religion, but most of the offer is filled by a very conservative Salafi type of Islam sponsored by Saudi Arabia. Other Muslim countries have been unable to offer grants to students on such a scale.” – by Ishaan Tharoor
23.3.2016 – The Independent (*A P T)
Brussels attacks: How Saudi Arabia's influence and a deal to get oil contracts sowed seeds of radicalism in Belgium
Radical Salafist teachings came from a very different tradition to the Islam of the city's North African immigrants
There are many reasons why Belgium has become a hotbed of radical Islamism. Some of the answers may lie in the implanting of Saudi Salafist preachers in the country from the 1960s.
Keen to secure oil contracts, Belgium’s King Baudouin made an offer to Saudi King Faisal, who had visited Brussels in 1967: Belgium would set up a mosque in the capital, and hire Gulf-trained clerics.
At the time, Belgium was encouraging Moroccan and Turkish workers to come into the country as cheap labour. The deal between the two Kings would make the mosque their main place of worship.
Although the mosque was treated as the official voice of Muslims in Belgium, its radical Salafist teachings came from a very different tradition to the Islam of the new immigrants. Today, there are around 600,000 people of Moroccan and Turkish origin in Belgium, a country of 11 million.
Mr Dallemagne says the Salafist clerics have tried to undermine attempts by Moroccan immigrants to integrate into Belgium. “We like to think Saudi Arabia is an ally and friend, but the Saudis are always engaged in double-talk: they want an alliance with the West when it comes to fighting Shias in Iran, but nonetheless have a conquering ideology when it comes to their religion in the rest of the world,” he said – by Leo Cendrowicz
23.3.2016 – Irish Independent (* A P T)
David McWilliams: West finally needs to admit all radical roads lead back to Saudi Arabia
Young men and young women become radicalised because someone else teaches them. It doesn't happen on its own. People who once were happy to be barmen don't turn into soldiers of Allah overnight. It is a process.
If you talk to Muslims, particularly older ones, they will tell you that this process of radicalisation is relatively new. It is the product of the past 30 or 40 years. If this is the case, what has happened? What has happened is that after the revolution in Iran in 1979, the West decided that Iran was the enemy and that our new best friend, Saudi Arabia could do no wrong. Saudi Arabia was the strong counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East and, therefore, anything it did was sanctioned.
We looked the other way, so much that we didn't even bother to understand the extreme form of Islam that Saudi Arabia practised and, worse still, fomented abroad.
Saudi Arabia practises Wahhabism. If you want to understand the region, it's critical to understand this strain of Islam that is preferred by - and exported by - Saudi Arabia.
You can't understand Isil and those people that carried out yesterday's attacks without understanding Saudi Arabia's role in all of this. What drives Isil to blow up ancient Roman, Persian and Buddhist monuments is rooted in Wahhabism. Nor can you understand what perverted logic drives them to kill innocents without learning about this type of strict Islam.
It all begins a long time ago.
Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab was born not far from Riyadh in 1703.
Al Wahhab called for the purification of Islam and a return to pristine Islam.
Possibly, in an effort to get God on his side in his fight against Istanbul, the local leader of a small oasis, Mohammad ibn Saud, threw his lot in with the renegade preacher, Al Wahhab, in 1745.
Possibly the most important tenet of Wahhabis is that they believe in what they call "the oneness of God". As a result, association with lesser gods, other gods, mysticism, shrines, temples, saints or holy men amounts to idolatry and must be stamped out.
This put Wahhabis on a collision course with the other strains of Islam, such as Shi'as or, even worse in the eyes of the Wahhabis, Sufism. Shi'as and Sufis were the enemy within and, of course, Judaism and Christianity were the enemies at the door. Wahhabis called for jihad against all these infidels.
Now the most extreme form of Islam was wedded to the richest country on earth and the Saudis have set about exporting not just oil, but a radical, intolerant form of Islam which drives Isil and various other jihadi groups.
Isil, with its murder of innocents, its desecration of ancient monuments and its subjugation of women, is the latest incarnation of extreme Wahhabism, and Saudi Arabia - the West's biggest ally in the region - is Isil's biggest external financier.
It costs money to wage war and Isil gets money from oil, local racketeering, hostage-taking and external private donations. The private donations come from donors, many of whom are Saudi.
When you follow the money, all radical roads lead back to Saudi Arabia, not states that are supposedly the West's enemies such as Libya, Iraq or even Assad's Syria – by David McWilliams
Comment: You can't understand Isil and those people that carried out yesterday's attacks without understanding Saudi Arabia's role in all of this. What drives Isil to blow up ancient Roman, Persian and Buddhist monuments is rooted in Wahhabism. Nor can you understand what perverted logic drives them to kill innocents without learning about this type of strict Islam.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=992350284151335&id=961126490607048
20.3.2016 – The Independent (* A P T)
It's our leaders who are creating a generation of terrorists
Europe is losing the battle because its leaders still indulge the sponsors of terrorism and germinate animosity and rancour
Western leaders – they revel in their “victories” and never think about why so many young Muslims, born in Europe, are turning to violent extremism.
Not one of the EU nations has, to date, taken on Saudi Arabia, the promulgator of hardline Islam and zealous intolerance. Saudi Arabia went into Belgium in the late sixties and spread Wahhabism among the newly arrived Muslim migrants. To date, $70bn has been spent on this global brainwashing and destabilisation programme. This Tuesday evening on ITV, a secretly filmed documentary investigates the nefarious kingdom. Will this exposure alter Europe’s special relationship with the most evil of empires? No.
Here is a dire warning: Europe is losing the battle against terrorism because its leaders still indulge the sponsors of terrorism, unthinkingly aid and abet the propagandists of Isis and germinate animosity and rancour in a new generation of Muslims. EU governments never say sorry, never let complexities divert them from their macho missions, seem incapable of thinking holistically, do not engage with history or the hinterlands, undercut democratic values, can only react to events as they happen and thereby endanger the lives of millions of citizens.
Here is a friend of mine, a Muslim woman, who works in the City and lives in a grand home: “I was born here, have done well. My faith is private and I have no time for fundis ( fundamentalists). But I am shocked. How can Cameron, my Prime Minister, treat refugees like they are cockroaches? Those children? Would he do this if they were white people from Zimbabwe? I now understand how a young Muslim turns and loads up on hate. My own son is so full of anger.” Me too. The media and our leaders – except for Mrs Merkel – demonise refugees and fill up on self-pity. The migration crisis is all about us. Sickening.
The European crusaders who attacked Iraq and Libya and play hidden war games in Syria have never accepted responsibility for the churn, chaos, rage and violence that they left in their wake. Western sanctions and bombs wiped out more people in Iraq than Saddam ever did.
Our political elites need to be honest, savvy and ethical. They must refrain from impetuous militarism and reach out to estranged Muslims – by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.
Comment: Written BEFORE the latest attack at Brussels.
On this subject, read also
23.3.2016 – Middle East Eye (* B P T)
Europe’s fertile ground for terror
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/europe-s-fertile-ground-terror-1725677285
and
23.3.2016 – Middle East Eye (** B P T)
Brussels attacks: Don't forget the many other victims of terrorism
The world should start acting with equivalence when it comes to human suffering and stop seeing the blood of non-Western peoples as cheap
European lives matter. White lives matter. They do. Yet these reactions and the double standards shown to victims of pain and suffering in the Middle East and across the rest of the world are simply too much to bear.
Of course, one of the biggest affronts to humanity, the original sin that bore the terrorism that has bathed the world in blood and fear and allowed an entire generation of the global population to grow up anxious about when the next big attack will come is the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Until the world starts acting with equivalence when it comes to human suffering and stops making the blood of non-Western peoples so cheap, no one should be surprised if this disease of terrorism continues to fester in our world, a curse hovering over this generation and the ones to come – by Tallha Abdulrazaq
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/maintaining-perspective-after-brussels-attacks-318673054
4.10.2014 – The Telegraph (** B P T)
Qatar and Saudi Arabia 'have ignited time bomb by funding global spread of radical Islam'
General Jonathan Shaw, Britain's former Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff, says Qatar and Saudi Arabia responsible for spread of radical Islam
General Jonathan Shaw, who retired as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff in 2012, told The Telegraph that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were primarily responsible for the rise of the extremist Islam that inspires Isil terrorists.
The two Gulf states have spent billions of dollars on promoting a militant and proselytising interpretation of their faith derived from Abdul Wahhab, an eighteenth century scholar, and based on the Salaf, or the original followers of the Prophet.
But the rulers of both countries are now more threatened by their creation than Britain or America, argued Gen Shaw. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has vowed to topple the Qatari and Saudi regimes, viewing both as corrupt outposts of decadence and sin.
So Qatar and Saudi Arabia have every reason to lead an ideological struggle against Isil, said Gen Shaw. On its own, he added, the West's military offensive against the terrorist movement was likely to prove "futile".
"This is a time bomb that, under the guise of education, Wahhabi Salafism is igniting under the world really. And it is funded by Saudi and Qatari money and that must stop," said Gen Shaw. "And the question then is 'does bombing people over there really tackle that?' I don't think so. I'd far rather see a much stronger handle on the ideological battle rather than the physical battle."
He believes that Isil can only be defeated by political and ideological means. Western air strikes in Iraq and Syria will, in his view, achieve nothing except temporary tactical success.
When it comes to waging that ideological struggle, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are pivotal. "The root problem is that those two countries are the only two countries in the world where Wahhabi Salafism is the state religion – and Isil is a violent expression of Wahabist Salafism," said Gen Shaw.
"The primary threat of Isil is not to us in the West: it's to Saudi Arabia and also to the other Gulf states."
The British and American air campaign would not "stop the support of people in Qatar and Saudi Arabia for this kind of activity," added Gen Shaw. "It's missing the point. It might, if it works, solve the immediate tactical problem. It's not addressing the fundamental problem of Wahhabi Salafism as a culture and a creed, which has got out of control and is still the ideological basis of Isil – and which will continue to exist even if we stop their advance in Iraq."
Gen Shaw said the Government's approach towards Isil was fundamentally mistaken. "People are still treating this as a military problem, which is in my view to misconceive the problem," he added. "My systemic worry is that we're repeating the mistakes that we made in Afghanistan and Iraq: putting the military far too up front and centre in our response to the threat without addressing the fundamental political question and the causes. The danger is that yet again we're taking a symptomatic treatment not a causal one."
Gen Shaw said that Isil's main focus was on toppling the established regimes of the Middle East, not striking Western targets – by David Blair
cp9 USA
22.3.2016 – US News (AP)
After Touting Free Speech in Cuba, Will Obama Denounce Saudi Arabia?
Human rights advocates want President Barack Obama to denounce Saudi Arabia’s jailing and lashing of a pro-democracy blogger and the possible beheading followed by crucifixion of a young protester when he visits the U.S.-allied monarchy next month.
Advocates say it would be perfectly logical -- though perhaps unlikely -- for Obama to do so after speaking publicly about human rights, freedom of speech and the value of free elections in Cuba during a visit to the authoritarian island this week.
“Given President Obama’s comments in Cuba, it would be extraordinarily ironic if he was unwilling to speak in a similarly blunt fashion in regards to a major U.S. ally,” says Sunjeev Bery, Middle East and North Africa advocacy director at Amnesty International USA.
“It’s time for President Obama to call on his allies in the Saudi government to release prisoners of conscience and those whose only ‘crime’ is to ask for human rights reforms,” Bery says.
Still, it's not clear that Obama would be willing to advocate publicly for the men or others like them.
“There unfortunately is a political element to the countries with which the U.S. gets tough on human rights,” says Human Rights Watch’s Saudi Arabia researcher Adam Coogle, who has worked with sources inside Saudi Arabia to document the high-profile Raif Badawi and Ali al-Nimr cases.
But Coogle believes Obama should use his last year in office to be more frank.
“It would sort of break all precedent,” he says. “There is no doubt that publicly naming Badawi, al-Nimr, or the over a dozen human rights activists currently behind bars following preposterously unfair trials would send a clear message to the Saudis that there is a cost to such abuses.”
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
24.3.2016 – UK Government (A P)
Foreign Secretary welcomes ceasefire in Yemen
Philip Hammond urges all parties to come to a political settlement
The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has welcomed the announcement made by the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, of a ceasefire in Yemen.
All parties to the conflict have agreed to the measure which will start on 10 April, with peace talks, facilitated by the UN, due to begin a week later in Kuwait.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said:
I welcome the efforts made in recent weeks by the Saudi-led Coalition and the Houthis which have led to a decline in violence, and the Coalition announcement that major combat operations in Yemen are coming to an end.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-welcomes-ceasefire-in-yemen
Comment: Looking at what Hammond did in the past, this is hypocrisy at its worst.
23.3.2016 – They work for you (A P)
MPs asking the government
Catherine West, Shadow Minister (Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs)
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the political and security situation in Yemen since the recent airstrikes by the Saudi Military; and if he will make a statement.
Tobias Ellwood, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Saudi Arabia and the Coalition have played a crucial role in reversing the military advance of the Houthis and forces loyal to former president Saleh. Coalition and Government of Yemen military gains must now be used to drive forward the political process. We welcome the reports of calming along the Saudi/Yemen border and prisoner releases. A political solution is the best way to bring long-term stability to Yemen and end the conflict. We are working closely with the UN to encourage parties to meet again and engage in good faith, without preconditions, and to respect future ceasefires.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2016-03-15.31201.h
Comment: That really is a crazy answer not hitting the point at all.
Comment by Jamila Hanan: Not sure which "military gains" or "Government of #Yemen" @Tobias_Ellwood is referring to.
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/713280936155156480
Comment to comment: Well, you certainly need this sort of cynism for still being able to stand Ellwood’s statements.
17.3.2016 – Parliament (A P)
Saudi Arabia: Arms Trade:Written question - 30754
Asked by Tulip Siddiq
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the oral statement by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Official Report, column 426, on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, what UK-supplied defence equipment has been used in Yemen; what arms export licences were issued for that equipment; and whether any arms export licences for that equipment have now been revoked.
Answered by: Michael Fallon, Answered on: 17 March 2016
The Royal Saudi Air Force are flying British-built aircraft in Yemen, and have been provided with precision-guided Paveway weapons. The Government is satisfied that extant licences for Saudi Arabia are fully compliant with the UK's export licences criteria.
No export licences for Saudi Arabia have been revoked in the last year. We continue to keep all arms sales under close review.
Comment: The statement “The Royal Saudi Air Force are flying British-built aircraft in Yemen, and have been provided with precision-guided Paveway weapons. The Government is satisfied that extant licences for Saudi Arabia are fully compliant with the UK's export licences criteria” simply is a contradiction in itself. If the british made airplanes are used in the Yemen war – what even Fallon admits here – this is by no means “compliant with the UK's export licences criteria”, as these forbid any arms exports even only if the arms “might” have been used against the rules of warfare – what is happening daily in Yemen.
24.3.2016 – Sky News (* A P)
Concerns Raised About UK's Role In Yemen War
Rights groups say the Saudi-led coalition has been targeting civilians, with a UN panel recording at least 119 illegal strikes.
Serious questions are being asked about the UK's involvement in the civil war in Yemen that has so far killed more than 3,200 civilians - 60% by airstrikes.
The UK is reported to have approved £2.8bn in military sales to Saudi Arabia since the start of the conflict last year.
The Government has also admitted to sending personnel to Saudi to provide "advice and help on the rules of war".
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says it appears to have made little difference as the Saudi-led coalition has carried out "dozens of strikes that have been disproportionate and indiscriminate".
HRW's UK director David Mepham said: "The latest revelations show UK policy to be both misleading and seriously ineffective."
Sky News was given exclusive access to a weapons storage facility near the Yemeni capital Sana'a where officials from the UN-trained Yemen Mine Action Centre showed us what they said were weapons dropped by Saudi coalition planes.
Officials say dozens of different types of bombs, rockets and missiles have been collected in the past few months in Sana'a and surrounding areas, where Houthi rebels are stationed.
Although Sky News cannot verify exactly where these weapons were found or who used them, we did discover a warhead from a UK-made missile.
Arms researchers at HRW and Amnesty helped us identify the warhead as belonging to an ALARM anti-radiation missile meant to target radar emissions as part of the suppression of enemy air defences.
HRW also confirmed this specialty item is used by the Saudi Air Force.
For many Yemenis it feels like the Saudi-led coalition is punishing them, trying to destroy their economy by targeting businesses and factories. – by Sherine Tadros
http://news.sky.com/story/1666516/concerns-raised-about-uks-role-in-yemen-war
23.3.2016 – Flick Drummond, MP (B K)
Flick Drummond: These Saudi-led attacks on civilians in Yemen must be stopped
I have regularly raised in Parliament my concerns about the coalition’s blockade on shipping which stopped supplies of fuel, medicine and food from entering Yemen. Whilst this has now eased, NGOs such as Save the Children that operate in the country have informed me that imports remain well below pre-conflict levels. This contributes to severe shortages of basic supplies and inflating prices in many areas. I am proud that the UK is a key aid donor.
There have been regular allegations that violations of international humanitarian and human rights law have been committed by all sides in the conflict. A recent UN report documented 119 incidents by Saudi-led coalition forces.
While I have confidence that the peace talks will bear fruit, we cannot wait to address both the humanitarian and civilian protection crises. The UK is an influential partner to Saudi Arabia and can bring pressure on it and other parties to the conflict to better protect children and their families, including by insisting on full compliance with international law.
In addition, the Government should join calls for an end to the use of explosive weapons in populated areas from which civilians in Yemen account for 93 per cent of all casualties.
Comment: As a conservative, you need not be a supporter of the Saudi war in Yemen, as Mrs. Drummond shows.
16.3. – Mint Press News (** B K P)
US, UK Protect Saudi Arabia From Human Rights Inquiries Despite ‘Clear Evidence Of War Crimes’
Despite assessments that there have been clear violations of international law in the Saudi-led coalition’s war on Yemen, British and American forces continue to supply the coalition with weaponry and help coordinate strikes.
As pressure builds for the British and American governments to cut ties with the Saudi-led coalition accused of war crimes in Yemen, an aid worker highlighted the trauma faced by children in an escalating crisis the United Nations has deemed a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
Fatima Al Ajal, who works with Save the Children in the nation’s war-torn capital Sanaa, said that more than 700 children have been killed since last March, and at least another 1,100 have been injured.
According to the U.N. Refugee Agency, 82 percent of the population — 21.2 million Yemenis, including 10 million children — are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
With health clinics also targeted by bombs, Al Ajal works with Save the Children to provide food and emergency medical help through mobile health clinics, but she and close relatives – including nine children in her wider family – must move around Sana’a regularly for security reasons.
In light of the devastation the Saudi-led coalition has brought to Yemen, pressure has been increasing on the British government to stop selling bombs to the Saudi-led coalition, including Paveway IV missiles produced by Raytheon in Fife, Scotland.
Last summer, the U.K. sold $1.4 billion worth of bombs, missiles and rockets to Saudi Arabia. Sales of these weapons, including Paveway IV missiles, were intended to support Saudi efforts to attack Houthi rebels, who ousted Yemen’s president last March. The Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states trying to reinstate Yemen’s president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is backed by Britain and the U.S., and the Saudis have a fleet of British and American-made fighter jets, including F-15s, Tornados and Eurofighter Typhoons.
Campaigners giving evidence to Westminster’s International Development Committee at the end of January highlighted the paradox of U.K. foreign policy in sending arms to Saudi Arabia while at the same time providing aid on the ground via the government’s Department for International Development. The department admitted to the committee that it had not been consulted over arm sales by ministers.
Despite growing concern, the British government has not only refused to suspend arms exports to Saudi Arabia, it’s also helped Saudi Arabia block an independent inquiry into war crimes by the U.N.
Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party has been calling for the U.K. government to investigate allegations of war crimes.
Patrick Grady, member of Parliament for Glasgow North and shadow Scottish National Party spokesperson on International Development, said in a statement to MintPress: “We continue to hear horror stories from the conflict in Yemen, yet the U.K. government remains unmoved.” – by Billy Briggs
http://www.mintpressnews.com/aid-workers-un-condemn-war-crimes-saudi-led-coalition-yemen/214775/
Comment: Good overview article, reporting what had been linked here many times, stressing the humanitarian situation and UK / US arms sales.
23.3.2016 – Parliament (A P)
Human rights groups discuss Yemen conflict
The Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) begin their inquiry into the use of UK-manufactured arms in Yemen in hearing from representatives of non-profit organisations with an interest in the region.
Watch Parliament TV: Use of UK-manufactured arms in Yemen
Inquiry: Use of UK-manufactured arms in Yemen
Committees on Arms Export Controls
Witnesses
Wednesday 23 March 2016, Committee Room 15, Palace of Westminster
At 2.30pm
Roy Isbister, Arms Unit, Saferworld
Oliver Sprague, Programme Director, Military Security and Police, Amnesty International
David Mepham, UK Director, Human Rights Watch
Tim Holmes, Regional Director, Middle East & Commonwealth of Independent States, Oxfam
Purpose of the session
The session will look at the situation on the ground in Yemen. Questions are expected to cover:
the impact of the conflict on the people who live there
the human rights situation
the presence that charities have in the region
Comment by Judith brown: I wonder who will be listening to them? No doubt Tobias Ellwood will think he knows better than all these Gencies working in Yemen. That's his usual line.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10154208752138641
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
21.3.2016 – The Globe and the Mail (* A P)
Canada’s $15-billion Saudi arms deal violates export rules, lawsuit argues
Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion is acting illegally by issuing permits to allow the export of combat vehicles to Saudi Arabia, a lawsuit filed in Federal Court on Monday alleges.
Opponents of Canada’s $15-billion arms deal with the Saudis are taking the Trudeau government to court in an attempt to block shipments of the fighting vehicles to Riyadh.
A group led by Daniel Turp, a professor of international and constitutional law at the University of Montreal, filed a notice of application for judicial review on Monday.
The Liberals have repeatedly refused to cancel the contract, but Dr. Turp argues this isn’t about whether a deal should be abrogated. According to Dr. Turp, the question at hand is whether the Liberals are fulfilling their legal obligations to properly implement Canadian restrictions on weapons exports – both under Canadian export rules and the Geneva Conventions Act.
He says Mr. Dion’s responsibility to carefully police exports of arms to countries with poor human-rights records isn’t extinguished simply because Ottawa doesn’t want to cancel a business deal.
The legal action may force the Liberals to explain how they justify these exports to a human-rights pariah despite Canadian rules that place restrictions on weapons shipments to countries where civilians are abused or where conflict is taking place.
The Canadian government is the prime contractor in a deal to supply the Saudi monarchy with $15-billion of armoured vehicles that will be equipped with machine guns or anti-tank weapons. The manufacturer, supporting 3,000 jobs in Canada, is General Dynamics Land Systems Canada in London, Ont.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stood by the massive contract, which was signed by the former Harper government, saying Canada’s reputation as a fair dealer would be injured if Ottawa walked away from a signed deal. Mr. Dion has also warned that abrogating the deal could incur big financial penalties for Ottawa – however, he refuses to elaborate on the size of the liability Canada would face.
Dr. Turp, supported by students at the University of Montreal and Montreal law firm Trudel Johnston & Lespérance, argues Mr. Dion’s responsibility to properly police arms exports is unaffected by who signed the deal or what legal consequences might follow from blocked shipments – by Steven Chase
19.3.2016 – The Tyee (* B P)
Bombing Hospitals Is a War Crime, Even When Your Friends Do It
Don't let our government be selective about who it criticizes.
The perpetrators of these war crimes are all sides involved -- including, unfortunately, our friends the Americans and our customers the Saudi Arabians.
This in turn poses a severe political challenge for Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government. Just the other day, Trudeau said, "Regardless of how we may feel about a previous government, the fact is they were democratically elected. They signed on to a contract and we are bound to respect that contract."
But any prime minister who respects a contract with a government that commits war crimes might as well turn himself in to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for complicity in those crimes.
If Canada is truly back in the international community, Trudeau will have to show he means it by obeying international law like the good global citizen he seems to be. But he is dealing with the House of Saud, the richest and best-armed 14th-century kingdom the world has ever seen, and he is now seen as the heir to the liberal throne soon to be vacated by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Both Obama's and King Salman's governments have committed well-documented violations of international law, just like Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin. Those violations were quite as criminal as the Japanese bayoneting of Canadian and other patients in a Hong Kong hospital on Christmas Day 1941.
A crime is a crime is a crime
So if bombing Syrian hospitals is a crime, bombing Yemeni hospitals is a crime, and bombing Afghan hospitals is also a crime. Innocence is not conferred by trade relations or by the existence of a contract signed by the previous government.
But complicity, if not outright guilt, can fairly be charged against a government that fails to criticize war crimes committed by its allies and trading partners -- whether in Lebanon in 2006 or Afghanistan in 2015 or Yemen in 2016. Being a selective critic only makes that government a hypocrite as well as a partner in its friends' crimes.
In the election campaign, Trudeau adopted an intelligent, harm-reduction policy when he chose training and humanitarian aid over yet more bombing. But he loses the moral high ground when he lets his friends go on bombing civilians just like Bashar al-Assad.
Trudeau could regain a little moral traction if more Canadians like Dr. Joanne Liu attacked his government's hypocrisy. Then he could at least go to his allies and complain about the political trouble they'd dragged him into, which obliged him to cancel the weapons carriers and perhaps be a little less obliging to the Americans.
It's up to ordinary Canadians to twist their prime minister's arm until he stands up a little straighter – by Crawford Kilian
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/03/19/Bombing-Hospitals-Is-War-Crime/
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
Siehe auch cp8a: Nach Brüssel / See also cp8: After Brussels
24.3.2016 – Mail Online (A T)
Indian Catholic priest 'kidnapped by ISIS' in Yemen may be crucified on Good Friday, say religious groups
Father Tom Uzhunnalil, 56, was taken by Islamist gunmen, reportedly linked to ISIS, who attacked an old people's home in Aden, southern Yemen, killing at least 15 people, on March 4.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3507652/Indian-Catholic-priest-kidnapped-ISIS-Yemen-crucified-Good-Friday-say-religious-groups.html
24.3.2016 – Khaleej Times (A T)
US strikes in Yemen can be game changer
Tuesday's air strikes came after a long pause, and took the dreaded militia by surprise. Pentagon says the target was an Al Qaeda training camp near the city of Mukalla.
The US had previously conducted drone attacks and air strikes in Yemen, but the long lull had provided militants with an opportunity to regroup and reconnect with their affiliates in Yemen and abroad. Since the fall of Iraq and Afghanistan, militants had swiftly moved into Yemen and the strife-torn Arab country had become a breeding ground for terrorists in the Middle East and Africa.
At least 7,000 people have been killed in Yemen after the Houthi aggression in 2015, which tore apart the country on sectarian lines. This has come as an opportunity for Al Qaeda and its affiliates, including Daesh, which has been digging its heels deep in the warzone. The question is will these US air strikes against Al Qaeda, and the like, make any difference on the security mosaic of the Middle East? Washington is widely criticised by its allies for taking a backseat, as the region is in a meltdown at the hands of terrorists and unscrupulous elements. President Barack Obama's failure to act in Syria, and allow Iraq go down the drain, as Daesh marched across its territory, is being seen as a sign of weakness.
In such a scenario, America's renewed involvement in Yemen has raised many eye-brows. Russia's proactive involvement in the region has negated the traditional role that Washington had played in the Middle East and Asia. Pentagon should specifically take care that its action is soundly backed by intelligence, and doesn't come to bleed the civilians, as it did in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is no room for collateral damage, anymore. It goes without saying that the US has to lead from the front in taking out the extremist network, and at the same time reengage itself constructively in the region.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/editorials-columns/us-strikes-in-yemen-can-be-game-changer
Comment: A mix of propaganda and reasonable conclusions. Blaming the Houthis for the rise of jihadism in Yemen, is “normal” coalition propaganda. Claiming the Houthis to be guilty of “sectarianism”, is really strange looking at the fact that Saudi pressure on spreading Wahabism in Yemen since many decades was the main reason for the birth of the Houthi movement, as this Wahabi pressure was pressing on the Zaidits for the most. This article also bypasses the simple fact that the Saudi coalition almost did nothing against Al Qaida and IS in Yemen. The article pretends that it would be the role and obligation of the USA to fight against Al Qaida and thus blames the US for not having done this adequately: “Washington is widely criticised by its allies for taking a backseat”. That is really funny. Off course , it absolutely comes true that “There is no room for collateral damage” in any further US drone strikes.
24.3.2016 – Press TV Iran (A T)
US pretends fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen: Activist
Press TV has interviewed Hussein al-Bukhaiti, a Yemeni activist and political commentator in Sana’a, about the US claiming that its warplanes have targeted a training camp of al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Walk us through what took place in Hadramawt Province.
Bukhaiti: We know that al-Qaeda has been in control of Hadramawt from the beginning of the Saudi-led coalition on Yemen and this coalition has never ever targeted any al-Qaeda training camps. They have seized all military bases in Abyan, in Shabwa, and as well in Hadramawt.
They were defeated by Ansarullah, the Houthis and the Popular Committees and the Yemeni army before the Saudi-led coalition which have brought them back to those areas and yesterday we saw this statement from the Pentagon, but let’s be clear here that the US has been targeting al-Qaeda for the last six years in Yemen, it has not succeeded in defeating al-Qaeda. It has killed hundreds of civilians in Yemen, the US drones have killed those civilians, and those attacks are used as a recruitment effort or recruitment propaganda for al-Qaeda to recruit more fighters in their effort to seize many areas in Yemen.
And we hear that yesterday many Saudi outlets and surprisingly some independent outlets like Reuters have claimed that the Saudi-led coalition did target this and I think this statement, it came as a denial to those claims by the Saudi-led coalition media.
Press TV: As you mentioned it has been six years since the United States has been carrying out these drone strikes against al-Qaeda. You also pointed out that they failed to defeat al-Qaeda, coupling that with the fact that so many civilians have been killed as a result of these drone strikes which are seen as a breach of Yemen’s sovereignty, what has to happen to get these drone strikes to stop?
Bukhaiti: I think the United States is using those drone strikes to show the world or to act as they really want to fight al-Qaeda but if they really wanted to fight al-Qaeda and defeat al-Qaeda in Yemen, they could have stopped their support for the Saudi-led coalition who is fighting side by side with al-Qaeda against Ansarullah, the Houthis, and the Yemeni army and we have seen the latest BBC report that shows those ISIS (Daesh) fighters, al-Qaeda fighters are fighting with the Saudi-led coalition using American made weapons and American made vehicles supplied by the United Arab Emirates and as well by the Saudi, those steps if the United States will do them then they will defeat al-Qaeda.
But we know that this intervention in Yemen happened only after Ansarullah, the Houthis and the Yemeni army have cleared all the south from al-Qaeda except Hadramawt at that time and then that is when the Americans felt that al-Qaeda was going to be defeated and they do not want that. They want al-Qaeda to stay in Yemen and they have failed in Afghanistan, they have failed in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, and they have created al-Qaeda actually and Daesh or ISIS in Iraq and Syria and Libya and now we have seen that those monsters who have been created in Iraq and Syria supported by the Western countries who used to let those terrorists go freely through Turkey to Syria, now those monsters are going back to European countries and I think we are going to see in the future more and more attacks on civilians in Europe unless if they want to stop it they have to stop the Saudi aggression in Yemen and as well they have to stop the source of al-Qaeda which the ideology of al-Qaeda and ISIS which [is] in Saudi through the Wahhabi religious thought and as well the finance that comes from Saudis and from all [Persian] Gulf countries and in this way we can defeat al-Qaeda altogether.
Comment: From a Houthi point of view. Anyway, that seems not so strange looking at the US policy in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan before.
24.3.2016 – Libanese Government (A T)
Death Toll of U.S. AntiQaida Raid in Yemen Jumps to 71
A U.S. air strike on an Al-Qaida training camp in Yemen this week killed more than 70 fighters, provincial officials said Thursday, raising an earlier toll of 40 dead.
"The toll from Tuesday's US strike has risen to 71 dead and 28 wounded" among recruits of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one official told AFP, requesting anonymity.
http://nna-leb.gov.lb/en/show-news/58983/Death-Toll-of-AntiQaida-Raid-in-Yemen-Jumps-to-71
23.3.2016 – Die Zeit (A K T)
US-Bomber töten viele Al-Kaida-Kämpfer im Jemen
Das US-Militär hat einen Luftangriff auf ein Ausbildungslager des Al-Kaida-Ablegers im Jemen verübt. Zahlreiche Kämpfer seien getötet worden.
US-Kampfbomber haben bei einem Angriff im Jemen nach Pentagon-Angaben mehrere Dutzend Kämpfer des Terrornetzwerks Al-Kaida getötet. Die Attacke habe ein Trainingslager getroffen, das von mehr als 70 Islamisten genutzt worden sei, so ein Sprecher. Der Angriff zeige die Entschlossenheit der USA, die Extremisten zu besiegen. Die genaue Zahl der Getöteten werde noch ermittelt. Zuvor hatten jemenitische Regierungs- und Stammesangehörige gesagt, bei Luftangriffen der von Saudi-Arabien angeführten Militärkoalition seien Dutzende Menschen getötet oder verletzt worden.
http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2016-03/jemen-usa-luftangriff-al-kaida
Kommentar: Die Saudis und ihre Koalition haben sich bisher fast gar nicht gegen Al Qaida und den IS im Jemen betätigt. Es waren also doch die Amerikaner. Erfolgsmeldungen wie diese sind freilich mit äußerster Vorsicht anzusehen. Die Amerikaner erklären bei derartigen Angriffen immer alle Getöteten zu „Terroristen“, „Islamisten“ u. dgl. Die meisten Toten (mit Abstand!!) sind jedoch immer Unbeteiligte. Wahrscheinlich wird man nie erfahren, wer hier tatsächlich ums Leben gekommen ist.
23.3.2016 – APA (A K T)
USA griffen Terrorcamp im Jemen an
Die USA haben bei einem Luftangriff auf ein Ausbildungslager der Terrorgruppe Al-Kaida auf der Arabischen Halbinsel im Jemen Dutzende Kämpfer getötet. Wie das US-Verteidigungsministerium am Dienstag weiter mitteilte, nutzten das Lager in den Bergen des Bürgerkriegslandes mehr als 70 Terroristen.
Die USA würden den genauen Erfolg des Angriffs noch überprüfen, jedoch sei nach ersten Erkenntnissen klar, dass Dutzende dieser Kämpfer getötet worden seien. Der US-Luftangriff bedeute einen Schlag gegen diese Gruppierung, die den Jemen als Basis für die Bedrohung von Amerikanern nutze.
http://www.suedtirolnews.it/d/artikel/2016/03/23/usa-griffen-terrorcamp-im-jemen-an.html
23.3.2016 – Reuters (A K T)
Strikes kill at least 50 at Qaeda Yemen camp: medics, official
At least 50 militants were killed in a U.S. air strike on an al Qaeda training camp in the mountains of southern Yemen, medics and a local official said on Wednesday.
The attack took place as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) recruits queued for dinner at the camp, west of the port city of Mukalla on Yemen's south coast.
The Pentagon said on Tuesday that a U.S. air strike on an AQAP training camp had killed dozens of fighters but it gave no further details.
The Yemeni sources said that at least 50 people were killed and 30 wounded. The air strikes set off huge fires inside the camp, residents said.
"The planes struck as al Qaeda people stood in line to receive their dinner meal," a local official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters by telephone.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-yemen-strike-idUSKCN0WO37I
23.3.2016 – The Guardian (A K T)
Massive US airstrike in Yemen kills 'dozens' of people, Pentagon says
Second mass-casualty strike the US military has undertaken this month
massive US airstrike in Yemen has killed what the Pentagon estimates is “dozens” of people, the second such mass-casualty strike the US military has undertaken this month.
The two strikes, killing more than 200 people at what the Pentagon described as terrorist training camps, diverged so sharply from the previous years’ worth of relatively low-casualty strikes that observers speculated US policy might have quietly changed.
Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, announced late Tuesday that the US had bombed a mountain redoubt in Yemen used by al-Qaida’s local affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). He said it was a “training camp” used by “more than 70 AQAP terrorists”.
An independent assessment of the actual impact of the strike, to include a full casualty total and civilian impact, was not immediately available. The Pentagon did not provide further detail of where in Yemen the alleged camp was located.
“We continue to assess the results of the operation, but our initial assessment is that dozens of AQAP fighters have been removed from the battlefield,” Cook said in a statement.
While all counterterrorism airstrikes during Barack Obama’s presidency have occurred under a veil of official secrecy, years’ worth of outside analysis has suggested that the strikes typically kill fewer than a dozen fighters at once.
Micah Zenko, a counterterrorism analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who tracks the strikes, estimated that the US has carried out 575 airstrikes in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, killing around 4,000 people, both militants and civilians – by Spencer Akerman
23.3.2016 – BBC (A K T)
US air strike 'kills dozens of al-Qaeda fighters in Yemen'
A US air strike has killed dozens of fighters from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in a mountainous region of Yemen, the Pentagon says.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the target was an al-Qaeda training camp that was being used by more than 70 fighters.
Since late January 2015, AQAP has lost a number of high-profile figures in US drone strikes - including leader Nasser al-Wuhayshi, religious official Harith al-Nadhari, ideologue and spokesman Ibrahim al-Rubaish along with lower ranking figures.
The Pentagon did not disclose the location of the camp.
However, Yemeni security officials told the Associated Press that the air strike hit a former military base that had been taken over by al-Qaida militants in the southwest part of the county near AQAP's stronghold city of Mukalla
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35878463 and this is Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-yemen-strike-idUSKCN0WO37I
cp15 Propaganda
25.3.2016 – Al Arabiya (A P)
Can the Ould Cheikh plan end the war in Yemen?
On the ground, today’s map shows that the rebels – i.e. Houthi militia and the isolated forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh – have lost control and have started defending their areas of origins, in the capital Sana’a and governorates like Saada. The new important development on the ground is that many of the local forces are being formed and are joining the military alliance; rebels can no longer return to fight in areas they lost or withdrew from.
That raises the question as to why rebels would negotiate knowing well that they will lose. The reason is simple: because it is their only chance. After failing to take over the country, they had two choices: either participate and get a stake in the governance or get nothing.
Similarly, why would the coalition accept to negotiate if they are set to emerge victorious? One of the participants in the plan asked: “Why doesn’t the campaign continue as most of the 22 province that make up this great country have been liberated – considering that the area of Yemen is bigger than Syria, Lebanon and Jordan combined?” He said that the goal of the military campaign was not to neutralize any party but rather the restoration of the legitimacy.
“We did not want Yemen to be left in the hands of Yemeni groups by force of arms,” he added. If they accept to negotiate in accordance with the Security Council resolution that means that we have achieved the desired objective. It is surely better to resolve the conflict through negotiations and by making compromises. It is much better than a military victory without a political solution.
Ould Cheikh’s plan is based on the re-adoption of the GCC initiative, based on which Saleh had tendered his resignation and given the Houthis a chance to participate in the government.
Comment: We are the winners, we have reached our goals, we want a political solution now: A propaganda line for the Saudis to get out of this war?
24.3.2016 – Middle East Monitor (A P)
Yemen president: Houthis have agreed to implement UN resolution 2216
Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi said on Wednesday that UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has informed him that the Houthi rebel group has agreed to implement UN Security Council resolution 2216. The resolution stipulates that Houthi rebels should withdraw from all the cities they control, deliver their heavy weapons to the state and release all detainees.
Hadi welcomed the decision during a meeting in Riyadh on Wednesday with ambassadors of the countries that are part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting against the Houthis.
“In spite of all the operational victories achieved by the national army and popular resistance on the ground, we are keen at the same time to preserve people’s lives and interests across the country which makes us deal wisely and patiently with the various developments,” Hadi said.
Hadi said the rebels only speak the language of arms, destruction and inhumane blockades.
The United Nations has not issued an official statement to confirm the Houthi rebels have agreed to implement the resolution.
The Houthis have also not commented on Hadi’s announcement.
Comment: This resolution is one of the few things Hadi cramps at. As already often stated: This resolution is totally one-sided. It demands the Houthis to capitulate in fact, the Saudi/Hadi side is demanded absolutely nothing. Thus, the Houthis never would implement this resolution in the way Hadi wants: i. e. to retreat and hand over their arms. If all things run well, they could do this after a peace had been signed which meets their demands and guarantees them their rights and participation. The only chance for Hadi is that the war ends by the Houthis just capitulating now and his own government and presidency surviving alone. Any real peace will lead to a new Yemeni government and new presidential elections kicking him out of office. Relying on statements like these, and if the Houthis do not capitulate, i.e. do not implement the resolution in the way Hadi thinks they should, he or his delegates in whatever situation can stop any future peace talk, blame the Houthis for that, and continue the war. Hadis only chance to stay “president” – in what a strange “presidency” in Riyadh ever – is as president of war, not of peace.
23.3.2016 – Gulf News (A P)
Yemen war, where the UAE gave martyrs and aid
The war cost UAE the largest number of martyrs in any single conflict
The UAE, along with Saudi Arabia and other members of the Arab coalition, has been fighting for the past year, losing precious lives in the process, in a valiant effort to free the Yemeni people from the repression of militant Al Houthis.
Analysts say as more and more provinces are being liberated and the legitimate government is able to return to Aden to perform its duties, the results so far have been promising, and the coalition has now set its sight on the liberation of Yemeni capital Sana’a.
“The UAE’s role in the Yemen operation is on a whole a successful illustration of a mix of air force and other services to achieve major strategic and tactical goals. What is most impressive is that the UAE Armed Forces are able to project in to Yemen with a healthy logistics chain that not only includes air capabilities but also the delivery of land-based assets to key ports, specifically Aden. These operations feature many successes in projection capability,” said Dr Theodore Karasik, Senior Adviser, Gulf State Analytics.
Dr Karasik told Gulf News that success can be measured in two ways. “First, UAE operations in Yemen achieved multiple goals of shaking up the local chessboard to bring the Hadi government back into the beleaguered country but also preparing the ground for offensives around Sana’a and into Taiz. Second, UAE military personnel are receiving a real-world experience in protecting their homeland, the UAE. This fact, despite fallen martyrs, who are UAE heros, sets a new and important standard for UAE pride and honour that will influence current and future generations.”
The UAE has lost more than 70 soldiers in the Yemen campaign — the largest number of martyrs in any single conflict the country has intervened — heroes who have laid down their lives to bring Yemen back on its feet. Nevertheless, its commitment to Yemen remains determined.
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/yemen-war-where-the-uae-gave-martyrs-and-aid-1.1696332
Comment: A lot could be remarked, time is lacking.
23.3.2016 – Qatar News Agency (A P)
Yemeni Foreign Minister Hails Qatar's Positive Role in Yemen's Crisis
Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdulmalik Al-Mikhlafi has praised the efforts being exerted by Qatar's leadership and people in the Yemeni crisis.
He said that the Yemeni people relies heavily on Qatar's positive role in all respects and its bid to host many conferences that brings Arab and international relief organizations together which their aid reached to more than $ 220 million.
In an interview with Qatari daily (Al Sharq) published Wednesday, Al-Mikhlafi said that Yemeni people are oppressed on the issue of carrying weapons, adding that in spite of the prevailing stereotypes about the Yemeni people, but Yemen's revolution was most peaceful revolution among all Arab revolutions.
He explained that the Yemeni people's decision was to end the revolution with a historic settlement without excluding anyone, including the deposed Ali Abdullah Saleh, but he and the Houthis turned against the will of the Yemeni people and stopped the transitional period.
He emphasized that the future of the relationship between the Houthis and the ousted Ali Abdullah Saleh will end if the latter continues his transgression. He also said that the Houthi rebels seem relatively willing to participate in peace negotiations because they know their project will fail.
Al-Mikhlafi added that the legitimate government is cooperating in various ways with Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, and there is a consensus on the principles that will lead to a solution, revealing efforts to agree on a new date in the near future to hold peace talks.
Yemeni people, he said, will not allow the existence of a Yemeni copy of Hezbollah, no matter how different their references, and will not accept anything but a normal state based on sovereignty, democracy, equality, and fair distribution of power and wealth.
The Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister said that GCC and Arab countries as a whole began to seriously develop a draft to counter the Iranian encroachment seeking to create seditions and sectarian wars in the Arab region. (QNA)
Comment: Hailing the Saudis and the allies – that is one of the main “tasks” of this “government” which even is not able to really govern just its capital city. A lot more would be to say.
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
25.3.2016 – Press TV Iran (A K PH)
15 people killed in another round of Saudi airstrikes across Yemen
At least 15 people were killed Friday in another round of airstrikes carried out by Saudi warplanes across Yemen, local media say.
Yemen’s al-Masirah television said one woman was killed and her two children sustained injuries when Saudi jets bombed a house in Bani Suraim District of the northwestern province of Amran.
At least 14 people were also killed in similar strikes on a residential area in Jabal Habashi region of the southwestern province of Ta'izz.
Saudi warplanes also pounded the Masloub district of the northern province of Jawf. There was no immediate report on casualties.
http://presstv.ir/Detail/2016/03/25/457483/Saudi-Arabia-Yemen-Amran
23.3.2016 – Press TV Iran (A K PH)
Saudi warplanes hit northwestern Yemen, killing more civilians
Saudi warplanes conducted a new series of airstrikes on northwestern Yemen Wednesday, killing at least four people, local media reports say.
Yemen’s al-Masirah television said the Saudi jets bombed parts of Hudaydah Province as the kingdom's aerial attacks on its impoverished southern neighbor have continued nonstop since they started on March 26, 2015.
On Wednesday, the northwestern province of Jawf, the southwestern province of Ta’izz and the northern province of Sana'a were also targeted in similar strikes.
http://presstv.ir/Detail/2016/03/23/457239/Yemen-Saudi-Arabia-Hudaydah-Amnesty-Human-Rights-Watch = http://en.abna24.com/service/middle-east-west-asia/archive/2016/03/24/742896/story.html
23.3.2016 – Pars Today (A K PH)
Saudische Luftangriffe im Jemen halten an
- Die von Saudi-Arabien geführte arabische Kriegsallianz im Jemen fliegt weiterhin Angriffe auf das land.
Bei heutigen Anschlägen auf Wohnviertel in der südjemenitischen Stadt Taiz wurden einige Menschen verletz. Duzende Wohnhäuser, Straßen und die Infrastruktur der Stadt wurden zudem beschädigt.
Vor dem Hintergrund der Verluste verstärkte Saudi-Arabien seine Luftangriffe auf die Provinz Taiz.
Als Reaktion auf die fortlaufenden Angriffe der saudischen Luftwaffe im Jemen haben die jemenitische Armee und die freiwilligen Kämpfer Stützpunkte saudischer Militärs im Zentrum des Landes angegriffen und dabei mehrere Soldaten getötet.
http://parstoday.com/de/news/middle_east-i3805-saudische_luftangriffe_im_jemen_halten_an
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
23.3.2016 – Strategika 51 (A K)
YÉMEN: 8 « CONSEILLERS » MILITAIRES ÉTRANGERS TUÉS PRÈS DU DÉTROIT STRATÉGIQUE DE BAB-AL-MANDEB
Trois officiers du renseignement militaire de l’Armée soudanaise en mission de reconnaissance pour le compte de la coalition de Ryad ont été tués mardi par des tirs de missiles antichar à Dhabab, non loin du détroit hautement stratégique de Bab-Al-Mandeb.
Le convoi comprenait des véhicules blindés et des chars de combat Abrams M1.
Trois jours auparavant, cinq mercenaires étrangers de la firme DynCorps ont trouvé la mort dans des combats sur le même front. Il s’agit d’un officier israélien, de deux croates, un serbe et un Sud-Africain.
http://strategika51.com/2016/03/24/yemen-8-conseillers-militaires-etrangers-tues-pres-du-detroit-strategique-de-bab-al-mandeb/ = http://reseauinternational.net/yemen-8-conseillers-militaires-etrangers-tues-pres-du-detroit-strategique-de-bab-al-mandeb/
23.3.2016 – Khabar News Agency (A K PH)
The martyrdom and wounding four civilians in an air strike central Sanaa
Martyred a civilian and wounded three others, one of them his wounds and was described as "extremely" midnight Wednesday, March 23 / March 2016 by the bombing of Air hostile military hospital near, targeted a bridge link between the leadership and the peoples of the central street of the capital Sanaa.
Medics told the "news" that the people he works cited in place of scraping, and three others were wounded, including a car was passing the bridge at the time of the raid was badly injured driver.
He said one of the people, that the search for victims is still going on.
The shelling damaged the homes and cars of citizens in the vicinity of the bridge.
http://khabaragency.net/news55635.html
Version March 23, 2016 – Wikipedia (B K)
People's Committees (Yemen)
People's Committees are armed groups established in Yemen with their members, mostly from various Yemeni tribes, for the purpose of assisting the Yemeni army in during the Yemeni uprising and the late Yemeni civil war. In 2010 is being established in the province of Shabwa and during the first days of Yemeni revolution in 2011, committees created also in the Abyan province to support the army in the face of AQAP militants in the provinces of South Yemen.[1] In 2015 during the Yemeni civil war, the popular resistance committees are formed in some governorates of Yemen, which is witnessing the armed conflict.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Committees_(Yemen)
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
24.3.2016 – Jewish Agency (A H)
We Were Prisoners in Yemen": Meet Israel's Most Recent Arrivals
Seventeen Yemenite Jews recently made Aliyah (immigrated to Israel) to reunite with their families, and just in time for Purim. Read their stories of life in Yemen.
http://www.jewishagency.org/blog/1/article/46201
Vorige / Previous:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/krieg-im-jemen-neue-artikel-zum-nachlesen-118
Neue Artikel zum Nachlesen 1-118: / Yemen Press Reader 1-118:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose oder / or
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