Yemen

UN: Yemen on verge of complete collapse

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UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein has warned that Yemen is on the brink of complete collapse amid Saudi-led airstrikes against the country.

“The country seems to be on the verge of total collapse,” the UN official said in a statement released on Tuesday.

He also expressed worries about the fatalities caused by the airstrikes, saying the situation in Yemen “is extremely alarming, with dozens of civilians killed over the past four days.”

The UN official added that he was shocked by a Monday airstrike on the al-Mazrak camp for displaced people in northwestern Yemen, which reportedly left some 45 people dead.

According to figures published by Zeid’s office, over 90 civilians have been killed and nearly 370 injured since the airstrikes began on March 26.

“Private homes, hospitals, education facilities and infrastructure in several locations have been destroyed, making life even more difficult for the people in the war-torn country,” Zeid said, adding, “The killing of so many innocent civilians is simply unacceptable.”

Many countries have evacuated their nationals from Yemen over the past few days following the Saudi-led aerial assaults against the Arab country.

Travelers wait at the Sana’a International Airport on March 31, 2015, as foreigners are being evacuated from Yemen following Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes. © AFP
The Al Saud regime unleashed its deadly air raids without a UN mandate against Yemen in an attempt to restore power to fugitive Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement, but the parliament did not approve the resignation.

Yemenis chant slogans during a demonstration in Sana’a against Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes, March 30, 2015. © AFP
The embattled president fled the southern city of Aden to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, earlier this month after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on Aden, where he had sought to set up a rival power base.

The Ansarullah fighters took control of the Yemeni capital in September 2014 and are currently moving southward. The revolutionaries said the Hadi government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.

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