On Wednesday 24 January, journalist Iona Craig said that people did not make the connection enough between the sale of arms and the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
While the Europeans have an embargo on arms to Yemen, this is not the case for Saudi Arabia, which is participating in the coalition and bombing the country. The European Parliament has called for an arms embargo against Riyadh on several occasions (see EUROPE 11809 and 11916). The EU Council's common position 2008/944/CFSP on the export of arms limits these exports, especially if the arms risk ending up in a war zone.
"There is proof that the sale of arms has a direct impact on the humanitarian crisis", Craig said at a hearing at the European Parliament. "People are increasingly aware about the sale of arms and their use in the conflict in Yemen, and at the same time they are sensitive to the humanitarian crisis, but they do not make the link", she added.
According to Craig, between the start of the coalition's operation on 26 March 2015 and 31 December 2017, there were 15,760 air raids, including 386 on schools, 183 on markets and 68 on medical sites. In her view, while a third of the air strikes involved non-military sites before December 2017, since that time and the death of former president Saleh, there have been twice as many non-military sites targeted by raids. "There is an escalation in the conflict", Craig summed up. "When the air strikes affect fuel depots, water installations and farms, it has an impact on the capacity of people to feed themselves", she said, when before the conflict, Yemen imported 90% of its food.
The representative of the United Nations development programme in Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, also warned about the humanitarian situation. In his view, over 22 million of the country's 27.5 million inhabitants need humanitarian aid. The country is in the grip of the worst epidemic of cholera in modern history. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)