War in Yemen is pushing health-care facilities to the brink of collapse

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Last edited Sun May 31, 2015, 04:21 PM - Edit history (1)

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Ameen al-Shirahi, his son Yusuf, and Nasser al-Shirahi, sit for a portrait in their home in Sanaa, Yemen on May 29. Nasser is suffering from severe kidney failure, heart problems, and brain hemmorhages. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

By Ali al-Mujahed and Hugh Naylor May 31 at 3:30 AM

SANAA, Yemen — Two months of war have devastated Yemen’s health sector, aggravating a dire humanitarian crisis by depriving millions of people of urgent medical care and threatening outbreaks of diseases like polio and measles, according to doctors and international aid organizations.

Medicines, vaccines and basic medical supplies are running desperately low, while hospitals are scaling back services or closing, they say. Increasingly, they note, medical facilities are being attacked by warring militias and bombed by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition, which launched an air war against Shiite insurgents, known as Houthis, in late March.

“Yemen’s health system is nearing collapse,” said Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, who heads Yemen operations for Doctors Without Borders.

The Arabian Peninsula nation of more than 25 million people already struggled with grinding poverty and lack of access to basic health care before the start of the air campaign. The Saudi-led campaign has fueled fighting on the ground between the Houthis and forces aligned with Yemen’s now-exiled president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. In February, the Shiite militants toppled Hadi’s government in assaults that continue throughout the country.

Saudi Arabia accuses the Houthis of being proxies of its enemy, Shiite Iran — a charge denied by the militant group.

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Yemeni child lays in a bed at a hospital in the capital Sanaa on May 12, 2015, a day after she was wounded in an air strike by Saudi-led coalition warplanes . (Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images)

Full article: http://world.einnews.com/article/268294065/qda2BoScDfaqJZAf


Saudi-led Yemen coalition still using cluster bombs: HRW

Human Rights Watch on Sunday published new evidence alleging a Saudi-led coalition is using internationally banned cluster bombs in Yemen, urging it to stop such attacks that were harming civilians.

The New York-based watchdog said it documented the use of three types of cluster munitions in Yemen, where Saudi-led warplanes have pounded positions of Shiite rebels and allies loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh since March 26.

"The Saudi-led coalition and other warring parties in Yemen need to recognise that using banned cluster munitions is very likely to harm civilians," said HRW's senior emergencies researcher Ole Solvang.

"These weapons can't distinguish military targets from civilians, and their unexploded submunitions threaten civilians, especially children, even long after the fighting," she added in a statement.

https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/saudi-led-yemen-coalition-still-using-cluster-bombs-074605816.html