PRESS RELEASE

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Saudi/Obama Genocide in Yemen a Catastrophe, Medical Journal The Lancet Charges

Nov. 9, 2015 (EIRNS)—In a Nov. 7 commentary, the British medical journal The Lancet notes that just weeks after the United States’ Oct. 3 bombing of the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) Kunduz Trauma Center (KTC) in Afghanistan, on Oct. 26 the so-called international "coalition" bombed the MSF hospital in northern Yemen. There is no mention of the Saudi role in decimating the country, although The Lancet decries the fact that the "international community" has remained silent on the atrocities being committed there.

Since March, 2015, the magazine reports, UNICEF has documented "coalition" attacks on 61 Yemeni hospitals, and MSF head-of-mission in the country, Hassan Boucenine, has warned,

Yemen is in an all-out war, in which the population caught on the wrong side is considered a legitimate target."

Prior to the increase in fighting, due to the Saudi attack, Yemen was already the poorest country in the Mideast, with a population of 26 million people. Today, more than 15 million people have lost access to basic health care, and more than 20 million struggle to get safe water and sanitation, UNICEF reports.

In, 2015, the number of young children under the age of five, who are at risk for severe malnutrition, has tripled, with 537,000 children now at risk, compared to 160,000 before the conflict intensified. Famine threatens some parts of the country, and 21 million are in need of humanitarian assistance, a situation that worsened after a tropical cyclone hit the country on Nov. 3.

The Lancet is distressed by the fact that the UN Security Council has sanctioned the "coalition" offensive targeting the Houthis. The consequences of the blockade allegedly established to keep out weapons, have been devastating, also blocking entry of food, medicine and fuel. Now, it’s time for the international community to speak out "about this catastrophic and neglected emergency," it concludes.