That is the headline in this morning’s Guardian:
Yemen: up to 85,000 young children dead from starvation
An estimated 85,000 children under the age of five have starved to death over the last three years as a result of Yemen’s civil war, a report from Save the Children has found....
The figure is a conservative estimate based on UN data on severe acute malnutrition, which the international body says has afflicted more than 1.3 million children since the conflict between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition that seeks to restore Yemen’s exiled government began in 2015.
About 14 million people – half of Yemen’s population – are currently at risk of famine, largely because of Saudi border blockades designed to weaken the Houthis, which have also strangled civilian access to food, fuel, aid and commercial goods.
Trump’s cozy relationship with the Saudis is well know, but US support for Saudi Arabia’s proxy war in Yemen began under the Obama administration. Human Rights Watch has an excellent article discussing how it began — and that administration’s attempts to soften how their involvement comes off.
www.hrw.org/…
The Obama administration’s stated justifications for joining the war effort obscure the truth of what led them to the war. Other Obama administration officials had already stated that their support for the war, coupled with a $1 billion arms deal, was first and foremost payback for Saudi’s grudging tolerance of the Iran nuclear deal, and to reassure them that the US remained a reliable ally, despite the deal. The amount of Iranian support to the Houthis has been debated, of course, but with little evidence, all pretty murky…
Well before President Trump’s appearance, we at Human Rights Watch and others had documented well over 100 apparently indiscriminate or disproportionate aerial attacks by the Saudi-led coalition on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Yemen, causing devastation to Yemenis in their homes, markets, schools, hospitals, and even during their weddings and their funerals. In case after case, we showed that US weapons were being used in many of these attacks, including widely banned cluster munitions in populated areas. False denials and cover-ups by Saudi military authorities were clear signs that they were not trustworthy partners. We repeatedly provided this evidence to Obama administration officials, but they would insist, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary, that the support they were providing was reining in the Saudis and helping improve their ability to comply with the laws of war. This is not a case of hindsight knows best. The Obama administration should have known back then.
What is clear is that our country has had a significant hand in the prosecution of this war, and bears significant responsibility for the massive famine already engulfing Yemen, despite the U.N.’s heroic efforts to find ways to get food and medical supplies to Yemenis using small boats to get around the airport closures and major port blockades. But the Saudis no only target these efforts with bombing, but all Yemeni fishermen as well, in attempt to starve the country into submission.
I feel sick this morning. The lack of Congressional attention to this travesty is stunning. The effects of this war parallel and go beyond the Rwandan genocide we we turned away from — but this time, we bear direct responsibility.