New York
Times, December 27, 2018
Saudi Strikes, American Bombs,
Yemeni Suffering
How Saudi Arabia ’s war tactics
have fueled Yemen ’s humanitarian crisis.
By Derek
Watkins & Declan Walsh
The dots on this map show some of the places where the Saudi
Arabia-led coalition struck civilian targets in Yemen .
At least 130 civilians were killed in September 2015 when the
coalition bombed a wedding reception near Mokha, Yemen .
“This is totally false news,” a statement by the Saudi-led
coalition said in response to the wedding reception bombing.
The Saudi coalition dropped American-made bombs on a funeral near
Sana in October 2016, killing 155 civilians.
A Saudi general initially said there had been no strikes near the
funeral. But days later the Saudi coalition admitted that an aircraft had “wrongly
targeted the location.”
The Saudi-led coalition bombed a school bus carrying children in
August 2018. CNN reported that the bomb was American-made. Forty-four children
and 10 adults were killed. The youngest child was 6.
The coalition “expresses regret over the mistakes, extends its
sympathies, condolences and solidarity to the families of the victims,” a
statement said.
These strikes are part of the broader Saudi-led air war that has
killed over 4,600 civilians in Yemen since 2015. Circles show the number of
coalition air raids by district since the war began.
Saudi Arabia and its allies have been waging a ruinous war on
neighboring Yemen for three years, with support from the United States . Armed
with powerful fighter jets and warships, the Saudi-led coalition has employed
tactics that minimize risk to its troops. But it has killed thousands of
civilians and dealt a crushing blow to Yemen ’s fragile economy.
The architect of the war, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of
Saudi Arabia, initially promised a swift victory against his Houthi foes. But
the effort quickly bogged down.
The Saudis and their chief ally, the United Arab Emirates, fight
principally from the air. Armed with American-made warplanes and bombs, they
have carried out thousands of airstrikes on Houthi targets but also on
hospitals, weddings and funerals.
Their pilots typically fly high to avoid enemy fire, which reduces
the accuracy of strikes. They regularly ignore a voluminous no-strike list.
The United States backed the coalition from the start with sales
of weapons and bombs, midair refueling of warplanes over Yemen, and
intelligence. After the funeral attack in 2016 killed 155 people, the Obama
administration blocked sales of precision-guided munitions. But the United
States continued to refuel coalition warplanes. In May 2017, the Trump
administration overturned the missile ban, amid a new weapons deal.
Mr. Trump said he did not want to lose the benefit of
multibillion-dollar arms sales for the American economy. But the war was ravaging
the economy of Yemen .
Yemen has always been poor, with high rates of malnutrition and
disease. But the three-year war has ground its economy into the dust.
Most Yemenis live in the west, between the mountains and the sea.
Much of the east is a vast, sparsely populated desert.
Much of the fighting has focused on the port city of Hudaydah, the
capital city of Sana, areas around the Saudi border, and Taiz in the south.
Yemen ’s agriculture cannot support the population so reliance on
imports is high: About 70 percent of food is imported. As the war continued,
the coalition imposed blockades and restrictions.
Blockades, bombing, currency manipulation and a decision to stop
paying public servants in Houthi territory crushed Yemen ’s economy.
The war pits some of the richest countries in the Middle East
against the poorest.
Yemen has modest reserves of oil, unlike Saudi Arabia , whose
economy is 38 times larger. But the war sent Yemen spiraling into an economic
catastrophe.
Millions are jobless. Factories have been destroyed. This year the
currency plunged sharply, causing inflation to soar. The Central Bank of Yemen
printed vast amounts of new currency, making things worse.
For ordinary Yemenis, that means soaring food, fuel and medicine
prices. The cost of a basket of basic food has doubled since the start of the
war. People have exhausted their savings and sold their cars, land or houses.
Many are going hungry.
The United Nations estimates that 16 million Yemenis, over half
the population, are seriously food deficient — despite international
humanitarian assistance.
Yemen ’s hunger crisis is nearing catastrophic proportions. At
least 85,000 children have died. Food insecurity projections show that, without
urgent action, a national famine is looming.
Starvation has become a weapon of war. In an effort to isolate
Houthi militants, the Saudi-led coalition has bombed farms, fishing boats and
factories, according to scholars. Civilians are hit hardest. Dots here show
coalition strikes on fishing and agriculture targets.
At least 6,500 civilians have died from airstrikes and other
war-related violence, including some likely war crimes. But the greatest threat
to most Yemenis is harder to see.
The economic devastation that pushed millions to the brink of
famine and created the worst cholera epidemic in living memory is no accident
of war: It is the product of deliberate policies by the warring parties.
The Saudi-led coalition, with its warplanes, blockades and vast
economic power, bears a large share of the blame. But the Houthis are also at
fault. They have manipulated relief aid, recruited child soldiers and planted
vast numbers of land mines, according to aid workers and human rights groups.
Peace talks in Sweden in December offered a faint glimmer of hope
for an end to the war. A shaky cease-fire in the key port of Hudaydah is
holding.
But if politics fails, many fear that Yemen could lapse into even
worse fighting. Famine could become a reality. And millions of civilians would
pay the heaviest price, yet again.
This story gives an overview of the war’s effects on civilians,
and the humanitarian crises it created. Read more about the front lines of the
war, Yemen ’s starvation crisis, attacks on fishing boats and America ’s
involvement in the war.
Civilian strike locations from Human Rights Watch and our own
reporting. Data on coalition air raids from the Yemen Data Project. Control map
data from the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project. Data on
Yemen ’s G.D.P. from World Bank. Locations of strikes on fishing and
agricultural targets from Yemen’s Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation and
Ministry of Fish Wealth, via a report by Martha Mundy at the London School of
Economics.
Additional work by Larry Buchanan.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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