Yemen needs united nations, not the United Nations

In front of the UNHRC building in Geneva (MEE/Afrah Nasser)

GENEVA – When I told my friends and family in Yemen that I was going to attend the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) again, they scolded me.

Three years after our long war started – and my fourth trip to a UNHRC session – there is a growing sense of resentment and distrust among Yemenis towards the UN over its inaction in dealing with the crisis in our country.

The main cause of that distrust is the sense that the UN submits to whatever Saudi Arabia and its allies want to see - or not see - in Yemen.

While war crimes have been committed in Yemen by all warring sides, the HRC, under Saudi Arabia and its allies’ influence, has failed to establish an international independent inquiry commission into these incidents.

A brief recap: In October 2015, under intense pressure from Saudi Arabia and with insufficient support from the US and the UK, a Dutch-led draft resolution to create an independent commission was abandoned at the UNHRC, six months after the Saudi-led campaign in the country began.

Instead, the council passed another resolution allowing the creation of a national inquiry body led by Saudi Arabia and Riyadh-based Yemeni government which became the National Committee to Investigate Allegations of Human Rights Violations.

Since then, while the committee is supposed to investigate and document human rights violations, it has yet to produce any significant reports and, from my perspective, is completely biased, focusing on Houthi human rights violations, not on those of the Saudi-led coalition.


In 2016, Saudi Arabia’s ally, Britain blocked another call to establish an independent international inquiry, reflecting just how heavily powerful UN member states and their allies influence the council.

Now the battle continues at the HRC’s 36th session which opened earlier this month. Member states will have an opportunity, yet again, to decide whether the UN should establish an independent inquiry.

Hustle and bustle

Following calls from 67 human rights organisations for the establishment of a UN inquiry mission into Yemen war crimes, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein also renewed his call for an international investigation.

“The minimal efforts made toward accountability over the past year are insufficient to respond to the gravity of the continuing and daily violations involved in this conflict,” Zeid said in a speech at the opening of the council’s session.

As the council got underway the bustling UNHRC hall, I talked to Mona Sabella, a UN advocacy officer with the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, one of the organisations that signed the petition.

“This session is more crucial than previous years because the Netherlands has gotten more support from other members like Canada, Luxembourg, Ireland, Belgium,” she said.

Sabella said she expected two rival draft resolutions to vie for support: a Dutch-led resolution for an international inquiry body and a Saudi-Egyptian-led resolution for another national inquiry body.

“And we, along with other human rights advocacy groups are working really hard to convince state members for the Dutch-led resolution to be espoused this time,” Sabella added.

As I finish my interview with Sabella, I head to the other side of the hall to meet people from Yemen's National Committee to Investigate Allegations of Human Rights Violations. Huda al-Sarai, a member of the group, suggests that, although some have criticised the committee for its lack of impartiality, that’s not the reason it has been ineffective.

“Our work is undermined by the deactivated justice system and I believe no international inquiry body could achieve any success as long as the war is raging and we lack rule of law," she said.

Nearby, Abdulrasheed al-Faqih, executive director with the Sanaa-based Mwatana Organisation for Human Rights, agrees with al-Sarai that Yemen is insecure and that the judicial system is frozen – but that’s exactly why, he says, an international inquiry is needed.

“Warring parties and armed groups in Yemen operate while not obliged with any legal considerations,” he said, “and this is why we need to uphold them accountable by international humanitarian and human rights law.”

Enforcing accountability won’t end the war in Yemen immediately, many of the people I talked to acknowledged, but it will stir the path to it.

An international inquiry, Kristine Beckerle, the Yemen and UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells me, will “ensure the global community has to reckon with what this war has meant for Yemenis across the country, and, ideally, inspire states to finally take the action needed to make sure these violations stop”.

Futile battle

I left Geneva with a sense of a tragic hope. I appreciate the efforts of the human rights groups, but justice for Yemen is threatened by Saudi Arabia’s hegemony at this council and other top UN bodies.

A series of previous events have demonstrated how the final say in establishing the UN Yemen inquiry is at the hands of the Saudis.

Even this time, at the beginning of the ongoing session, the Saudi representative to the council rejected calls for the inquiry, saying the time wasn’t right. Given the past attempts to establish an inquiry, this doesn’t bode well.

For me, it is a futile battle - human rights groups wanting to stand up for Yemeni civilians versus Saudi Arabia’s great power at the UNHRC.

The resolutions that have come out of the council are a reflection of how member states view human rights problems and, clearly, Saudi Arabia and its allies view war crimes in Yemen without much concern at all.

The way these countries wield power at the UNHRC, I can only wish the human rights groups the best of luck.

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*My dispatch to Middle East Eye from the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, September 25th, 2017. 

Sign and share! Syrian Statement in Solidarity with the People of Yemen

Yemeni children play in the rubble of a house destroyed by a Saudi-led airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen on Sept. 8, 2015 (Credit: AP/Hani Mohammed).

I don't know how, despite all the trauma and pain, some Syrian activists took the initiative to pull this together. So noble, so brave, so solidaristic. I signed and this is a call to sign/share here. 

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SYRIAN STATEMENT IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF YEMEN

While we bond first and foremost over our pursuit of justice, our shared, painful reality also brings us together. Civilians in both Syria and Yemen have borne the brunt of the violence, our schools, hospitals and markets bombed by Assad, Russian, Saudi and American aircraft; our communities withering under siege, dying a slow and painful death; and the delivery of our humanitarian aid politicized by international actors. For almost two years, Yemen has suffered under a naval, air, and water blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia, restricting the flow of food, medicine, and, importantly, information to and from the country. Our demands for the Assad regime to lift its sieges on Madaya, Daraya, Al-Waer, and countless other towns and neighborhoods ring hollow unless we make the same demands of Saudi Arabia and Ansar Allah (hereafter referred to as Houthis). End the sieges, now.

We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with the people of Yemen and their aspiration for freedom, democracy and social justice. Like other communities and cities in the region, thousands of Yemeni protesters took the streets in mid-January 2011 to protest peacefully the corruption and authoritarianism of the governments and Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule. As Syrian revolutionaries, we fully support the Yemeni people’s struggle for freedom, social justice, safety, health and dignity.

We as Syrians who seek democratic and genuine secular change in Syria see how regional power dynamics between Iran and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) have had catastrophic consequences on both Yemen and Syria. Without drawing false analogies between the Yemeni state and the Assad regime, the Houthis and the armed Syrian opposition, it does not escape us how the power struggles for Syria and Yemen includes the same regional actors and a mounting civilian death toll.

Specifically, KSA commits war crimes in the name of supporting the state in Yemen while Iran is responsible for large scale destruction in Syria through its support of the Assad regime. Furthermore, both KSA and Iran are responsible for supporting armed non-state actors (certain armed opposition groups in Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen respectively) without a strategy for de-escalating violence, ensuring accountability measures, and protecting civilians and their basic human rights. It is clear to us as Syrian revolutionaries, who took the streets peacefully -- not as Muslims or Christians, Sunnis or Alawites, Kurds or Arabs, but as people attempting to claim their citizenry as Syrians -- that these countries’ interference does not stem from their support of the people’s demands for social change, but rather from the exploitation of the people’s struggle, and the consumption of local human capital and natural resources to exercise control, maintain power, and build power.

Like in Syria, the international community’s inaction has failed Yemen. The UN has become a mechanism to uphold systematic violence, and the rising military presence of regional and international powers has contributed to prolonging the conflict and hindering the process of finding just and sustainable solutions.

Political Points

Foreign intervention in both countries has caused the people more sorrow than justice. We fiercely condemn KSA’s use of internationally banned weapons, use of cluster bombs, targeting of schools, hospitals, weddings, funerals among many other civilian inhabited neighborhoods. On this point, It should be clearly stated that KSA’s relationship with the U.S. has also been fueling war crimes in Yemen. Likewise in Syria but on a different level, the KSA and other Gulf countries’ support to some undemocratic groups and warlords in Syria, like Jaish Al-Islam in Ghouta, enhances counter-revolutionary forces that have been accused of kidnapping and assassinating activists in besieged Ghouta by several families, activists and writers. In addition, the Iranian-backed Houthis have been disrupting the political transition process and went against the popular Yemeni wish to remove Ali Abdullah Saleh. We equally condemn their mass atrocity crimes against civilian and minority communities in Yemen.

We echo the demands of Yemeni civil society activists to implement UNSC Resolution 2216, which calls on an end to violence by all parties in Yemen, Saudis and Houthis alike. The cessation of hostilities in Yemen is the first step to peace in the country; it will allow space for Yemeni to Yemeni negotiations.

So too do we stand with the people of Yemen in their quest for accountability and justice, a necessary step on the path to reconciliation and stability. Yemeni civil society and international human rights groups have repeatedly made calls for an independent investigation into war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict. This is a critical first step toward accountability. Saudi Arabia last year successfully blocked a UN Human Rights Council resolution to establish an international commission of inquiry, which would have undoubtedly primarily incriminated the Gulf state. Syrians are no stranger to the politics of such demands --although the Human Rights Council established a commission to investigate war crimes allegations in Syria dating back to the start of the revolution in March 2011, Russian and Chinese UN Security Council vetoes have blocked meaningful action in the form of a referral to the International Criminal Court. All state and non-state actors in Yemen and Syria should be held accountable according to
the dictates of international law. No exceptions.


Signatures:

Shiyam Galyon
Maryam Saleh
Razan Ghazzawi
Rula Asad
Yasser Munif
Mohja Kahf
Ramah Kudaimi
Tariq Samman
Lilah Khoja
Suzan Boulad
Leila Shami
Robin Yassin Kasab
Ali Kaakarli
Sumayya Saleh
Hiba Shaban
Mohamad Abou Ghazala
Salma Kahale
Faress Jouejati
Rand Sabbagh
Yazan Al-Saadi
Afrah Nasser
Laila Alodaat
Khuloud Saba
Rua Al Taweel
Joseph Daher
Safi Ghazal
Malak Chabkoun
Osama Salloum
Mohamad Alshlash
Dima Nashawi
Yazan Badran
Rowida Kanaan
Mansor Iesa
Suliman ِAli
Safi Ghazal, activist
Rima Majed
Mansor Iesa
Suliman ِAli
عبدالعزيز العائدي
Dirar Khattab
Bassam Al Ahmad (A Syrian Human Rights Defender)
Ruben Lagattolla
ahmad mohamad
Grégoire Bali
Nader Atassi
Wejdan Nassif
Mais Atassi
Andrew Berman, Veterans for Peace
Afra Jalabi
Adnan Al Mhamied
انا متضامن مع الشعب اليمني
Mahmoud Sisouno
Tasneem Sannah
Budour Hassan
Joey Ayoub
fouad roueiha
آرمانج أمي
آرمانج أمين
Noura Mansour
كل التضامن مع الشعب اليمني
Mohammed Alsaud
Lina Smoudi
Mohammed Alsaud
Muhammad alhaj
Sonia Pecoraro
Farouk Nashar
Hayat Zarzour
نعم
لانا البحرة
Shiyar khaleal
Bilquis allahabi
Musaab Balchi
أحمد دراوشة
Nisreen Mobayed
Alicia Fernández Gómez
Rama Alhoussaini
Banah Ghadbian
مغير الهندي
Denisse Alanis
Omar Abbas
Walid Daou
Yasmeen Mobayed
علا صالح
Aghyan Alzuabi
Pierre
Fouad Roueiha
Rouba Choufi
Noor alkhatib
Aram Khoury
Khalid kalthum
Mohammad Abu Hajar
Assem Hamsho
دالي عقيل
أمل محمد
Hani sayed
Aman bezreh
Ameenah A. Sawwan
Dellair Youssef
Razan Saffour
Hana alamine
Manar Shabouk
Shuruq Abdullah
Sammy Hamdi
Adi Hussein Yassin
مها العمري
Marah Alsafadi
Iris Aulbach

Organizations:

Dawlaty
Socialist Forum-Lebanon.
Souryana Al Amal
Najda now international
Intellectuals for Building Syria Gathering | تجمع مثقفون لبناء سوريا
شبكة المرأة السورية
The Working Group For Syrian Detainees
Comitato Khaled Bakrawi - Italia

Sweden Has A Role In Yemenis’ Suffering And Must Suspend Its Weapon Sales To Saudi

Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven met Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs,
Nizar bin Obaid Madani in Riyadh, Saudi. October 2016. Photo courtesy: Aftonbladet.

*Swedish media tends to criticize the Swedish-Saudi relation denouncing Sweden’s desire to be an ally to Saudi and pointing out that it is a dictatorship that lacks any free political life and a country that commits massive human rights violations. But it is time to update that perspective: Saudis’ record in human rights violations have exceeded its borders.

Swedes must also condemn Saudi’s war crimes record in Yemen; this most importantly entails Swedes questioning Sweden-made weapon sold to Saudi used in possible war crimes.

Top Swedish arms dealer Marcus Wallenberg "accompanies" Swedish PM  Löfven to Saudi this weekend despite revelations that Saudi armed ISIS.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 21, 2016

 

Ahead Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s visit to Saudi at the end of last month, Wikileaks tweeted that top Swedish arms dealer Marcus Wallenberg “accompanied” Swedish PM Löfven to Saudi. This is plausible as Saudi is one of the top clients of Sweden’s weaponry industry. In its 2016 report, Control Arms Coalition named Sweden as one of the countries having reported licenses and sales to Saudi Arabia in 2015. Saudi won’t obtain all these weaponry unless there is a flourishing market. Saudi is the world’s third-largest spender in military expenditure index. Despite that Sweden has announced last year its military cooperation with Saudi was not renewed, Saab remains able to continue selling arms to Gulf countries - which are active actors in the ongoing conflict in Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition intervention in impoverished Yemen that began in March 2015 was only possible because of the high level of arms imports made to the coalition 10 Arab state members, headed by oil-rich Saudi. In 2011-15 Saudi Arabia’s arms imports increased by 275 percent compared with 2006-10. In the course of Yemen war, at least 10,000 people have been killed and the UN reported that the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for most civilian casualties. Human rights groups which include Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both documented dozens of unlawful coalition airstrikes, some of which may amount to war crimes. Schools, hospitals, weddings, funerals among many other civilian targets were not exempted from the coalition airstrikes.

In parallel, calls for countries to stop selling weapons to Saudi are raised. The calls include Sweden who had little or nothing to state in condemning the atrocities in Yemen. I became well-aware of Sweden’s indifference when Sana’a funeral attack happened in which 140 people were killed and over 500 were injured by a double-tap airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition earlier this month. Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallström showed no condemnation statement, whatsoever, while she usually rushes to condemn terrorist attacks elsewhere. Seemingly, Sweden’s silence over the Saudis’ war in Yemen is relevant to Sweden’s arms sales to the kingdom.

Last year, Sweden had a strong stance against Saudi over its terrible human rights violations record, then why the silence today? What has changed now? Why the silence over Saudi’s role in the suffering in Yemen? Sweden’s revival of the Saudi-Swedish ties comes as a step into Swedish preparation for its seat on the UN Security Council in the beginning of next year and with that Sweden seems to be willing to compromise & ally itself with the Saudis. Sweden had to re-establish its good relation to the Saudis and gain Saudis’ support in the council.

In that seat, Sweden actually is becoming increasingly relevant to peace in Yemen - it must honor the international laws and exert efforts to ensure peace; which both Saudi is violating in the war in Yemen. However, Sweden’s indifference over the potential use of its weapons in causing the suffering in Yemen undermines Sweden’s future role in ensuring peace. If Sweden doesn’t condemn Saudi war crimes now, then when will it do so?

It is time to refresh our view on the problem with Sweden allying Saudi considering Saudi’s war crimes record in Yemen war and therefore call upon that Sweden suspend any of its arms sales to Saudi- unless, Sweden would like to be on the wrong side of history.

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*This piece was originally published in Swedish in Swedish magazine, Omvarlden on the 1st of November, 2016.

Save Yemen before the famine rages

One of Yemeni graffiti artist, Murad Subay's work in Sana'a street, reflecting on the humanitarian crisis. 

*The war in Yemen has been often described by media as the forgotten war and in my view, that’s an inaccurate description. It’s rather a lucrative war; lucrative to the West and the East. It has been nineteenth months since the Saudi-led coalition, backed by the US and Britain, began its airstrikes campaign. This came following an attempted coup d'etat against president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi by Yemen’s rebels group – the Houthis – in September 2014. Ever since, the West has been showing indifference to the tragedy in Yemen. As the US, UK and other Western countries have an interest in the arms sale with the Saudis, and a number of Arab countries are themselves members of the coalition, and the Houthi-Saleh coalition stands as deadly to thousands of Yemeni civilians, the international community is turning a blind eye to the atrocities in Yemen, mostly the silent death of thousands of Yemenis through starvation.

Towards the end of Yemen’s post-uprising transitional period in 2014, Yemen started to witness a counter-revolution movement, manifested in Houthis-Saleh alliance, each motivated by its own agenda. Houthis were discontent with the new political realignment preparing Yemen for a new ruling system (Federalism) and led by their political agenda in restoring a religious imamate and resuming their hierarchical supremacy. Saleh was led by resentment and aiming at crushing those who helped oust him in 2011. Over the coming months, the alliance began an aggressive military campaign against Saleh’s oppositional forces, which included president Hadi, after the Houthis descended to Sana’a and militarily took over the capital and stormed into Hadi’s presidential palace. Consequently, Hadi escaped to Saudi Arabia and sought support. In the name of restoring legitimacy in Yemen, Saudi Arabia formed a coalition consisting of 11 Arab states and launched its airstrikes campaign.


Midst this complex conflict, Yemeni people pay a heavy price as they are directly and indirectly affected. The human cost in Yemen war has reached a critical stage, causing the death of at least 10,000 people, the displacement of more than 3 million people and a worsening humanitarian situation for 80% of Yemen’s 27 million population. One of the devastating impacts of the war is hunger and the predicted famine unfolding itself in front of the world’s eyes and next to some of the world’s richest countries. Over half of Yemen’s population – 14.4 million Yemenis unable to meet their food needs and 19.4 million people lacking clean water and sanitation. As children are the most vulnerable, it is estimated that 320,000 children in Yemen face severe malnutrition. All these indicators are nothing but an early warning of a looming famine.

Photos courtesy: Oxfam. 

Hunger Causes

Prior to the ongoing conflict, several factors made Yemen not only one of the poorest countries in the world but also the poorest Arab country in the Arab region. In light of major domestic events, Yemenis have been suffering a life under overlapping deprivations. The foremost event was the return of about one million Yemeni guest workers from Gulf countries to Yemen in 1990 following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait contributed greatly to needs of jobs, schools, healthcare and other basic social services. Then, in light of Yemen’s unification and the country’s failure to manage the challenges of integrating the North and the South’s economic systems and resolving the implications of the post-civil war period; all these events and much more had a devastating impact on the developmental growth of the country.

In 2009, nearly half of Yemen’s population were living under the poverty line. To be poor in Yemen meant to be food insecure, with no clean water, illiterate and unable to afford feeding your kids nutritious food. Thus, Yemen was repeatedly ranked at the bottom in the Human Development Index. Yemen even failed to achieve decreasing the hunger rate, which was one of the UN’s millennium goals. While all these figures were emerging, Yemen’s ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh was busy piling up his wealth in billions.

Midst of a milieu of ongoing instability, corruption and unequal distribution of national wealth, and out of social inequality and major economic grievances, Yemen’s 2011 uprising broke out leading the country into a vicious circle of one political crisis after another impacting the already fragile economy to decline further.

As Yemen has been rolling into an eco-political shock after another over years, the ongoing conflict has tremendously exacerbated the food safety. For a country that relies on the import of 90 percent of its food commodities, it’s extremely difficult to cope with the current dire humanitarian situation. The World Food Program explains, “fuel shortages and import restrictions have reduced the availability of essential food commodities in the country.” As Yemen was already crumbling by the ongoing conflict, the occurrence of a couple of natural disasters in the past few years; from flash floods to powerful cyclone have had an appalling effect on the situation.

Photo courtesy: Oxfam.

Man-Made Famine

Although the war is a contributory factor, hunger in Yemen is largely a man-made catastrophe for which both the Saudis and the Houthis bear vast responsibility. They are both using food as a systematic and strategic weapon in the war. A blockade over Yemen’s main ports has been placed by the Saudi-led coalition since the beginning of the war, denying flights and shipments of fuel, food and medicine supplies. According to a UN reporter, the Saudis as well forbid aid agencies from delivering humanitarian aid to Houthi-controlled areas. Over the past few months, a number of bridges used to transport UN food aid have been bombed by the coalition. In parallel, the Houthi-Saleh coalition has systematically put people to death in battled areas by denying besieged people access to water and food; this is evident formerly in Aden and currently in Taiz. As a quick solution, a black market for goods is thriving in the country, where only those few who can afford the high prices in the market can buy. The World Bank today estimates that almost all Yemen’s population live under the poverty line.

Silence is a War Crime

Millions of Yemenis are not only poor today but they are also in despair and hungry for both peace and food. As more than 21 million of people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance inside Yemen, this catastrophe is more than anywhere else in the world, including Syria. As human rights issues blogger and activist, I am frustrated by the world’s apathy over the tragedy in Yemen. I always write and give talks about the situation in Yemen, and after describing the devastating current picture, I try to ask the world to imagine that Yemen was hit by an earthquake, hoping that this would encourage them to rally and help this impoverished nation. Instead Yemenis are met with worldwide indifference and left to die in silence. Not taking an action to save Yemen before the famine rages is a choice the the international community is making which unfortunately will be regarded as a disgrace to the international humanitarian system (22 September 2016).

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*This essay was originally published in Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation's website on September 29, 2016.

Investigative Yemeni Journalist: 'Siege imposed on Yemen is Houthi-made rather than a Saudi-made one'

Investigative Yemeni journalist, Mohammed Al Absi reports that siege imposed on Yemen is Houthi-made rather than a Saudi-made one. Al Absi –who's regarded as one of the top investigative Yemeni journalists and whose critical work has led him to prosecution two years ago after his sharp investigative work– has published on his Facebook/blog a document that proves that the Houthis are manipulating the issue of the siege imposed on Yemen, which is lifted already, for their interests. The following is a translated version into English of his post. 

It seems that the siege imposed on the people in Yemen is done domestically rather than externally; it's a Houthi-made siege rather than a Saudi-made siege.

Here is the objective findings I build my statement on:

-Yemenis are without water since 80 days on the pretext that there is lack of fuel for starting the water pumps.

-Yemenis are without electricity since 80 days on the pretext that the gas station is out of order and there is lack of diesel.


-Garbage is pilling up in all the streets across all Yemeni cities on the pretext that there is no fuel that the cleaning cars need.


So, there is no electricity, no water, no gas, no hygiene. All these crisis are justified by Houthis by them saying it is "the Saudi siege", but the truth is there is no any naval blockade. The Yemeni government (that's if there is any?) can import whatever it wants such as fuel, and anyone who works at the Hodeidah port knows that ships unload its loads daily at the port.


Since 10th of May, following the humanitarian truce that lasted for 5 days, the UN forced the Arab countries' coalition to cease the naval blockade that was imposed on Yemen by them. That was publicly announced, then, and the international media has reported so.


The most simple evidence on this is the number of cars you see on the streets. Before the 5th of May the streets were deserted unlike how it is after the truce.


The strongest evidence on this to anyone who's suspicious, especially those who are sympathisers, this document, shown above, displays a list of naval operations done at Hodeidah port. It shows names and numbers of the commercial ships' loads that reached Hodeidah, in one day alone, the 16th of June.

According to the document, around 8 commercial and humanitarian ships have reached Hodeidah port, and they are waiting to unload. Plus, the authorities at the port expect another 7 international ships to arrive within the coming days, two ships are believed to have 38 thousand tons of wheat. Also, another two ships would carry other goods.


The document shows also that the following ships will arrive soon:

1. CHANG TANG TAN ship, carrying 37,000 tons of petrol.

2. CASSENRA ship, carrying 39182 tons of fuel.

3. SEA PHANTOM ship, carrying 11874 tons of diesel.


There have been ships that have already reached Hodeidah port, on the 16th of June, two commercial ships carrying food. Additionally, there were 3 ships that had different amounts of fuel.


Where does this large amount of fuel go to?



Houthis and the black market traders sell it to Yemenis with double prices, while they just obtain what they want on the pretext that it's going to the "military front".

Now, someone ask Mohammed Al-Maqaleh why the Houthi group is torturing the Yemeni people while it claims that there is a naval blockade - the ships are pouring in on a daily basis at the Hodeidah port.


The 6 electricity stations in Sana'a is not generating currently, not even 20 mega while it can generate 146 mega, quarter what the capital city, Sana'a needs. The officers at the electricity ministry demand providing fuel. The Houthis reply: we are in a state of siege and war. But the document of the operations at the Hodeidah port proves the contrary!

The steam stations can alone produce around 300 mega and produce electricity to 5 cities. Why the electricity ministry is not provided with fuel? Houthis reply: we are in a state of siege and war. But the document of the operations at the Hodeidah port proves the contrary!


The gas station in Marib province is switched off by a political will and it was shut down on the pretext that "so it won't be hit by the airstrikes", just like how the electricity station in Saadah was hit by the stupid coalition's airstrikes that hit gas stations and residential areas alike in Saadah and other cities.


Those who exploit the suffering and needs of Yemenis inside the country are more despicable than those who kill Yemenis from the sky with rockets. And those who kill Yemenis with tanks and exploit their needs are even double despicable. These people who make sure that the crisis gets deepen and increase Yemenis' suffering won't win this battle.


In a nutshell, the siege is a %100 domestically made. It's imposed by the Houthis for psychological and media reasons. The only one who benefits from this is the traders at the black market. These traders are a combination of opportunists, bureaucratic group "the old regime", sheikhs, directors of provinces, directors of neighbourhoods, and local governor men.