Vigil for Yemen. Photograph Source: Felton Davis – CC BY 2.0
What keeps the war in Yemen going? Borzou Daragahi of the UK Independent observes:
The greatest tragedy of the five-year war in Yemen may be that of the numerous conflicts in the region it is the most easily resolved, if the international community had the will to rein it in rather than to largely ignore it, or serve as its enabler.
Iran enables Yemen’s Houthi rebels by providing them with weapons. Iran’s provision of arms to the Houthis is mirrored by arms sales the US, UK, and France make to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, who inhabit one of the world’s richest countries, have been conducting a genocidal war on Yemen, the world’s fifth-poorest country, since 2015.
Saudi Arabia kills civilians in Yemen thanks to US weapons. The Saudis used a smart bomb manufactured by Lockheed Martin to kill 40 Yemeni children on a school bus. Two Saudi airstrikes on the Yemeni village of Mastaba in March 2016 left 97 civilians dead, 25 of them children. The bombs used were 2,000-pound MK-84s from General Dynamics with components manufactured by Boeing and Raytheon.
The Saudis deliberately target civilians, and attack hospitals, schools, weddings, and funerals. Kemal Jendoubi, one of the authors of a report on Yemen to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in August, 2018 that “There is little evidence of any attempt by parties to the conflict to minimize civilian casualties.”
