SANAA, Oct. 7(Saba) –After more than three years of escalating conflict, Yemen continues to face an unprecedented humanitarian, social and economic crisis.
Since the escalation of violent conflict in March 2015, the economy has deteriorated sharply the estimated contraction amounts to approximately 50 percent cumulatively.
The decline in GDP growth is bottoming out in 2018 with an estimated reduction of 2.6 percent compared to 5.9 percent in 2017, Conflict related adverse economic impacts and distortions show negative impact.
14% of Yemen's population is food-insecure. Each day, a total of 10.6 million men, women and children in Yemen struggle to find their next meal—that's more than the entire population of New York City. 2. Child malnutrition rates in Yemen are among the highest in the world.
Yemeni farmers have had their livelihoods severely disrupted because of ongoing conflict, an FAO-implemented project supported by the World Bank and funded by the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program is providing poor Yemeni families with seeds, poultry and other inputs to resume agricultural production and increase income and nutrition.
The current crisis in Yemen has placed enormous pressure on the country’s population.
More than 350,000 children suffer from severe acute malnutrition, over 2 million people have been internally displaced due to the fighting, simply put, life has become very difficult for millions of Yemenis.
Houthi officials were among the participants in the event, where they vowed to resist the Saudi war and conduct retaliatory attacks.
Senior Houthi official, Daifallah al-Shami, said Riyadh is trying to "starve and suffocate Yemenis." Protester Ahmed al-Masani told the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal that Yemen is grappling with famine while the Saudis enjoy controlling the country's oil wells.
"In March 2015, the Saudis promised that they would recapture the whole country in two weeks, but they haven’t been able to do it in more than three years. Instead, they led the country towards famine," he said. "We demand them to leave our country and we will manage our wealth ourselves."
"Yemenis are starving to death because of the increase of basic commodities’ prices, while the Saudis are enjoying their life and they have not rescued the Yemenis from famine," he added. Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the brutal war against Yemen in an attempt to reinstall the country's former Riyadh-allied regime and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The Western-backed imposed war, however, has so far failed to achieve its stated goals, thanks to stiff resistance from Yemeni troops and allied Houthi fighters.
Yemen’s Oil and Mineral Ministry has denounced the looting of the country’s oil resources by Saudi Arabia, saying the move is a blatant violation of international law.
The ministry said in a statement that Saudi Arabia transports Yemeni oil to the Arabian Sea through a pipeline which extends from the Rub' al Khali desert to Hadhramaut and al-Mahrah provinces south of the country.
It said that Riyadh’s move to plunder Yemen’s wealth is done with the complicity of the country’s former Saudi-allied government.
Stating that the Saudi recent move has sparked protests by the residents of al-Mahrah and other provinces, the statement called on the United Nations and the UN Security Council to counter Saudi aggression, occupation and looting of Yemeni resources through legal mechanisms.
Experts say the pipeline would allow the kingdom not to be constrained to the Strait of Hormuz or the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, both strategic choke points that affect its current oil shipping routes.
The war has unleashed a humanitarian and economic crisis on the already impoverished country. The UN has described the situation as “one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times.” Yemenis "came out to tell the whole world that we will not accept to die of hunger or under siege, but these things increase our determination to die on the honorable fronts in the face of the invading conquerors, in the face of those trying to kill us with hunger, militarily and from the air," he added.
Mohammed Heeda, another Houthi official, stressed that the Yemeni fighters would liberate their homeland from "the Saudi-American-Zionist injustice and control."
Written by Mona Zaid
Saba