[News] Saudi-Led Coalition Continues Its Seven-Year Blockade Of Yemen

[Anti-Imperialist News]

popularresistance.org
<https://popularresistance.org/saudi-led-coalition-continues-its-seven-year-blockade-of-yemen/>
Saudi-Led Coalition Continues Its Seven-Year Blockade Of Yemen
By People's Dispatch.- November 17, 2022
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

Above Photo: Al Mayadeen.
A Houthi official said that in recent times, at least three ships carrying
petroleum products have been stopped from reaching Hodeidah port.

*The seven-year-long blockade has prevented crucial supplies of energy,
food and medicine from reaching millions.*

According to the Houthi-led government in Yemen, the Saudi Arabia-led
international coalition has intensified its comprehensive land, sea and air
blockade of the country, causing increased suffering of common people. The
Houthis claimed that in the last few days, Saudi forces aided by the US
have seized four ships carrying crucial supplies to Yemen’s Hodeidah port.

Essam al-Mutawakel, spokesperson of the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC),
tweeted on Tuesday, November 15, that one such ship named *Red Ruby* carrying
thousands of tons of petroleum was detained and stopped from reaching the
Hodeidah port by Saudi and US forces despite it having all necessary
clearances by the UN verification and inspection mechanism (UNIVM) based in
Djibouti.

Al-Mutawakel called the move by the US and Saudi Arabia “piracy,” which
will “increase the suffering of the Yemeni people.”

*Twitter translation:* The US-Saudi aggression coalition is still
practicing piracy, distillation and moodiness in the entry of fuel ships,
as it has today detained the gasoline ship “Red Ruby” despite its forced
search in Djibouti, and all of these actions aim to increase the suffering
of the Yemeni people.

He had earlier claimed that Saudi-US forces prevented two ships, Fos Energy
and Princess Halimah, which were carrying thousands of tons of diesel, from
reaching the port last week.

*Twitter translation:* The US-Saudi aggression coalition continues to
piracy on oil derivatives ships of a humanitarian character, as it seized
today two ships #ديزل
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%B2%D9%84?src=hashtag_click> ,
namely (the ship Fos Energy, and the ship Princess Halima), despite their
being subject to forced inspection in Djibouti, thus bringing the number of
detained ships to 3 ships carrying a substance #الديزل
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%B2%D9%84?src=hashtag_click>
.

The Houthi-led government in Sanaa claims that during the six-month
ceasefire between April and September, the Saudi coalition allowed only 33
out of 54 ships bound for Hodeidah, in complete violation of the truce
agreement. It was one of the reasons the Houthis refused to extend
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/10/04/houthis-blame-saudi-led-coalition-for-expiry-of-yemen-ceasefire/>
the
UN-brokered deal.

Earlier this month, Iranian *Press TV* quoted the Yemeni Health Ministry
<https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/11/12/692604/Yemen-suffers-medicine-shortages-due-to-Saudi-blockade>
in
Sanaa as saying that the country is facing an unprecedented shortage of
medical supplies due to the continued Saudi blockade, which has also shut
the Sanaa international airport again after it was partially opened
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/04/22/yemens-sanaa-airport-to-reopen-after-six-years-of-illegal-saudi-led-blockade/>
for
around five months during the UN-brokered ceasefire.
Blockade Causing World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis

The Saudi-led international coalition in Yemen, backed by the US and the
UK, launched a war against the Houthi-led government in Sanaa in 2015,
claiming it to be a proxy of Iran and to reinstall President Abdrabbuh
Mansur Hadi who had fled to Saudi Arabia following the Houthi takeover. The
Saudi coalition imposed a complete sea, air and land blockade of Yemen
allegedly to prevent the supply of weapons to Houthis.

Both Iran and the Houthis have denied the Saudi coalition’s claims of a
proxy war. Iran has said that even after seven years of blockade, the
Saudis have failed to establish the claims of weapons smuggling but have
only caused human suffering. Iran asserts that its support to Yemenis
<https://mfa.gov.ir/portal/newsview/690168> is “political in nature.”

The blockade has caused tremendous suffering for millions of Yemenis who
are largely dependent on imports of food, fuel and medicines. It is one of
the main reasons for the large-scale humanitarian crisis in the country
that has pushed millions of Yemenis toward starvation and death due to lack
of medical supplies, prompting the UN to call it the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis <https://www.wfp.org/yemen-crisis>.

Hadi later stepped down, handing
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/04/08/saudi-based-yemeni-leader-steps-down-as-president/>
power
to a seven-member Presidential Council.

The Saudi coalition has refused to end its aggression and lift the blockade
despite repeated appeals from the UN and other human rights groups
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/16/lift-yemen-blockade-to-save-children-un-agencies-tell-saudis>
who
have expressed concern about it causing large-scale deaths.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20221118/fad62396/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 462149 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20221118/fad62396/attachment.png>