SANAA, Jan. 18 (Saba) - Fife years of restrictions imposed on Yemen’s airspace by the Saudi-led coalition is preventing thousands of sick Yemeni civilians from seeking urgent medical treatment outside the country, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and CARE said .
NRC and CARE International have called repeatedly on the Saudi-led coalition to lift the restrictions on Yemen’s airspace, and to allow medical supplies to be imported and patients in need of treatment to leave from Sana’a airport.
In Yemen, where hundreds of painful stories disappears with the hustle and bustle of life, the heroes are patients whose lives have brought them to live with pain and soreness. Hospitals lack the minimum life-saving, which contains only a few antibiotics and some first aid because of the US-Saudi aggression and its blockade, which harms everything in life, During five years of killing innocents, using prohibited weapons, the US-Saudi aggression has caused the largest humanitarian catastrophe on the face of the earth, according to humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations itself.
Yemenis are trying to stand up despite pain, but the continuation of the siege and aggression imposed on the country increases the deterioration of life and living conditions. It has worsens the lives of the sick and injured. Here in the capital, Sana'a, more than ninety patients suffering from chronic diseases appealed to the world months ago for their medical assistance abroad, and the World Health Organization promised them to travel after signing an agreement to start a Medical Air Bridge, for the most difficult and irreversible humanitarian cases in Yemen.
But that was not permitted by the alliance of criminals in the US-Saudi aggression that abandoned all values and morals. They, the patients, went back to their homes, then they were called again and went back to their homes in their villages. Then that organization invited them to travel so they came carrying pain and hope to go out and travel out of the country for treatment, but the surprise for them by not traveling because the countries of the aggression alliance led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE refused.
Minister of Public Health and Population Dr. Taha al-Mutawakil said that more than 300 children with leukemia need to travel abroad for treatment urgently.
The minister inspected a number of critical cases of children patients suffering leukemia at the Academic Kuwait Hospital in the capital Sana’a.
Director General of Kuwait Hospital, Dr. Amin Al-Junaid, said that dozens of children suffering from leukemia are dying as a result of the unjust siege of the countries of brutal aggression and the closure of Sanaa Airport. He said in a statement, that "the Children’s Leukemia Center at Kuwait Hospital is the only center that provides services to hundreds of patients with children with leukemia, noting that the siege of the aggression coalition had a great impact on the treatment of children with cancer."
Al-Junaid pointed that there are dozens of deaths due to lack Medicines and modest potential. He said that 30% of children with leukemia who could have been transferred for treatment in specialized centers outside the country died as a result of the closure of Sanaa Airport.
In the same context, Deputy Director of the Children’s Leukemia Center Dr. Naseem Al-Absi revealed that childhood leukemia has spread horribly recently, and we receive 6 new cases every month. She said that children’s leukemia cases are specific and the patient needs three years of treatment and diagnostic sessions in light of the great difficulties we face.
"We have 700 cases registered with the drug-poor center, and a pediatric leukemia patient needs full health care and is unable to purchase expensive drugs," she added
. “As if bullets, bombs and cholera did not kill enough people, the airport closure is condemning thousands more to a premature death,” said Mohammed Abdi, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Country Director in Yemen. “There is no justification for preventing very sick civilians from leaving the country to get life-saving medical treatment.
“People are dying because they cannot do the simplest of things, which is fly from their own airport,” said Johan Mooij, Country Director for CARE International in Yemen. “The continued closure of Sana’a airport has become a symbol of a country that is not functioning for its own people. Millions in Yemen are suffering from a lack of access to things that we in most other countries take absolutely for granted. This must end, and all ports – land, air and sea – must be kept open.”
Dr. al-Mutawakil said that “the siege and aggression (Saudi-led coalition) prevented the entry of medicines of cancer patients and at the same time deprived the patients from travelling for treatment abroad.”
He called on the international community to press the Saudi-led coalition to open Sana’a International Airport in order to allow patients to travel and save the lives of children with leukemia.
“The continued closure of the airport threatens lives of more than 37 thousand patients with various tumors,” he added.
Fife years of war has decimated Yemen’s already-fragile health system. Less than half the health facilities in Yemen are fully operational. Much of the country’s medical equipment including in the capital Sana’a is obsolete and urgently needs to be replaced, according to the Ministry of Health in Sana’a. An almost complete halt to commercial shipments and medicines through the airport, coupled with the restrictions on imports through Hodeidah port has caused prices to more than double, making essential medicines unaffordable for most of the population.
Restrictions on Yemen’s airspace make it harder for people with chronic diseases to seek life-saving medical treatment outside the country. The Ministry of Health in Sana’a reports that before the war, around 7,000 Yemenis were travelling abroad from Sana’a International Airport each year for medical treatment not available in Yemen, including for heart, kidney and liver disease, blood conditions, cancer and other long term health conditions.
The closure of Sana’a airport, means the only option for those in the capital and north of the country who need medical treatment abroad is to travel by road to Aden or Seiyun in the South and take a plane from there, an arduous route that can take 15 to 24 hours and involves crossing check points, and conflict frontlines. In addition to the cost and strain of the journey, some also choose not to make the journey because of fear of arrest and retribution when they cross from territory controlled by one party to another.
Under UN Security Council Resolution 2451, warring parties are urged to work with the UN Special Envoy to reopen the safe and secure operation of Sana’a airport for commercial flights but there has been a lack of progress to date.
NRC and CARE called on warring parties to come to an agreement to reopen Sana’a airport for commercial flights, and its allies UK, US, and France to apply pressure on both sides to end their political wrangling over the airport to alleviate humanitarian suffering caused by the closure.
Written by Mona Zaid
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