Report reveals Saudi crimes against Yemenis
TEHRAN – A human rights group monitoring the Yemen situation has revealed a shocking amount of damage caused by Saudi Arabia during its war in the Arab country.
The group, Humanity Eye Center for Rights and Development (EHCRD), has provided heart-wrenching statistics about the human casualties and economic damage Yemen incurred over the past 2,300 days since the start of the U.S.-backed Saudi aggression against Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has been entangled in one of its worst wars against Yemen since 2015 when it started an air raid campaign against its fellow Arab country with the alleged aim of eradicating the Iranian influence there. After years of bombardment, Saudi Arabia not only failed to oust the Ansarallah-led government, but it also was unable to prevent the Yemenis from mounting retaliatory attacks inside its territory. Facing a well-organized popular resistance in Yemen, the Saudis blamed their failure on Iran, accusing it of providing weaponry to its Yemeni allies.
The Saudi war on Yemen has also produced the worst humanitarian catastrophe ever seen in the region, with millions of Yemenis either unable to make ends meet or have died due to lack of food and medicine. Saudi Arabia has stubbornly refused to allow the entry of humanitarian aid into many Ansarallah-controlled territories, effectively using the humanitarian aid as leverage to put pressure on the Sanaa government and extract more concessions from it.
The Sanaa-based government has urged the Saudis several times to separate political issues from the humanitarian ones, only to face a Saudi insistence on blocking the flow of the much-needed aid into Yemen.
In addition, Saudi Arabia has continued its air raids and blanket bombardment on Yemeni targets without differentiating between civilian and military targets.
This approach has resulted in disaster in terms of the loss of human lives and economic infrastructures, according to the recent survey of EHCRD.
The human rights observatory said the Saudi aggression against Yemen has resulted in the loss of 17,176 human lives, including 3,842 children and 2,400 women. According to the survey, the total casualties of the Saudi war on Yemen stand at 43,891. This includes 17,176 people killed and 26,715 injured.
As regards economic damages, EHCRD indicated that the Yemen war proved devastating because it inflicted huge havoc on infrastructures, economic and service facilities. For instance, 575,353 civil houses were destroyed during the war. In addition, tens of thousands of other public facilities such as universities, mosques, hospitals, schools, airports, ports, roads and bridges were damaged in the war. This puts the Yemen war at the top of the devastating wars in terms of civilian casualties and damages.
According to EHCRD, 15 airports, 16 ports, 308 power stations and generators, 553 telecommunication networks, 2,397 warehouses and water supply networks, 1,983 government centers and 5,224 roads and bridges have been damaged.
As for economic damages, 396 factories, 352 fuel tankers, 11,479 commercial centers, 423 livestock and poultry farms, 7,945 means of transport, 472 fishing boats, 931 food stores, 397 fuel stations, 685 markets and 858 food trucks have been destroyed.
Service facilities also had their share of destruction with 575,353 homes, 179 university centers, 1,466 mosques, 369 tourism centers, 391 hospitals and health centers, 1,110 schools and training centers, 7,733 farmlands, 135 sports centers, 248 archaeological sites and 49 media centers being damaged or destroyed as a result of the war.
The anti-Yemen coalition led by Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen in March 2015 to suppress the revolution in Yemen and prevent Ansarallah from gaining power, according to Fars News. Britain, France, the United States, Germany and some Arab countries have all supported the coalition militarily and in supplying arms to keep the fire of unequal war, which officials say has been the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world, still burning, the news agency reported.