by Editor (Editorials, Crescent International Vol. 47, No. 2, Rajab, 1439)
The Saudi-led war on Yemen has entered its fourth year and there is as yet no letup in the Saudi murder of innocent civilians in the poorest country in the Muslim East. The most conservative estimate puts the death toll at 13,600. Many more Yemenis have been injured, some with life threatening wounds. The UN estimates that at least 22 million of Yemen’s 24 million people are food deficient with eight million on the verge of starvation.
The worst affected are children, the most vulnerable segment of the population. Not only have 5,000 children been killed since March 2015 when this vicious war was unleashed, more than a million are suffering from cholera because of the Saudi siege. Desperately needed medicines are not available to save these children.
For more than a year, there are no more targets to hit but the Saudis keep bombing. They have hit factories, schools, hospitals, grain storage facilities, and even funeral processions. A cement factory has been bombed five times, a flour factory four times. These constitute war crimes. The UN has said as much, as has Human Rights Watch. As Defence Minister Muhammad bin Salman may have to face war crimes charges if and when the Western rulers feel he has outlived his usefulness. That day may come sooner than later.
Why are the Najdi Bedouins bombing a dirt-poor country like Yemen? They want to reinstall their own puppet ruler, ‘Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi back in power in Sana‘a. He fled the country and is currently hiding out in Saudi Arabia, while the people he wants to lead are being murdered by the thousands.
The Yemen Data Project recorded 356 air raids targeting farms, 174 targeting market places, and 61 air raids targeting food storage sites from March 2015 to the end of September 2017. Water treatment plants, warehouses, and health facilities have similarly been targeted. Both the UN and Human Rights Watch have said Saudi air strikes have violated international law. The US and Britain, principal arms suppliers and facilitators of Saudi attacks on Yemen, are complicit in these crimes. There is no contrition from the merchants of death or even a hint that they intend to stop supplying these lethal wares. If anything, both Washington and London want to sell more weapons to the Saudis.
Despite this level of brutality against Yemeni civilians, especially children, the Saudis and their allies have failed miserably to achieve any of their objectives. Instead, Yemen has become a millstone around their neck. It is becoming increasingly likely that the war on Yemen would prove to be Bani Saud’s undoing. Already the signs are there. Bin Salman fired several of his top generals clearly signaling that the war on Yemen is not going well. Further, the Ansarullah fighters continue to fire missiles at Saudi military installations scaring the living daylights out of them.
For Yemen, read the end of Bani Saud!
