Saudi blockades, aggression behind famine in Yemen: Ansarullah

The Yemeni Houthi Ansarullah movement says Saudi Arabia’s military campaign and its crippling blockades against Yemen is behind a severe food shortage and famine plaguing the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.

Mohammad Abdulsalam, the Ansarullah spokesman, said in a post on his Facebook page on Tuesday that the Saudi-led military coalition is ducking the responsibility for the worsening humanitarian and economic situation in Yemen at the same time as maintaining a naval and aerial blockade on the conflict-ridden country.

While the Riyadh-led coalition is enforcing a no-fly zone over Yemen and bombing medical facilities, ambulances and even clinics run by the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, it refuses to take responsibility for the crisis in Yemen and keeps blaming others for impeding access to vital humanitarian aid for the civilian population, he pointed out.

Earlier on Tuesday, Saudi military spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri claimed that fighters from the Ansarullah movement have seized a total of 34 Yemen-bound aid boats over a six-month period.

Assiri further accused Ansarullah members of blocking humanitarian supplies to the western Yemeni city of Hudaydah.

The Ansarullah spokesman further said Saudi Arabia and its regional allies are continuously bombarding the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah, located 150 kilometers southwest of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, preventing freight vessels from docking at Yemeni ports and killing innocent women and children.

He added that the Saudi military pounds residential complexes, funeral and wedding ceremonies, schools, markets, bridges, dairy factories and many other places, claiming that it is targeting Houthi fighters and allied Yemeni army forces.

Abdulsalam further said the pro-Riyadh contingent uses sophisticated missiles in its deadly air raids and recruits mercenaries from around the world to press ahead with its offensive in Yemen

The Al Saud regime and its allies are spending huge sums of money to buy the support of other countries, he added.

The Saudi regime, he added, has no respect for the international regulations and Muslim values, and is spreading propaganda to represent Yemeni armed forces as those responsible for the famine and disease outbreaks in Yemen.

Riyadh launched the military campaign in March 2015 in an attempt to bring back the former Yemeni government to power and undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 7.4 million Yemeni children are in dire need of medical help, and 370,000 run the risk of severe acute malnutrition.