Yemen - Hunger as a weapon

The world promised Yemen only half the aid it needs. Yet at the same time, arms sales to the warring factions are thriving. 

 the worst famine in the world today has been man-made, for the most part. It's because of war that one-third of Yemenis are starving and two-thirds of the country's people depend on relief supplies. It is a war that sees hunger used as a weapon. One of the main causes of Yemen's famine is the continuing Saudi-led naval blockade of Yemeni ports.It is a war that, only after the Saudi-led coalition intervened two years ago, escalated ethnic conflicts that had simmered for decades into a disaster. it is a war which generates huge profits.

In 2015, when the wealthiest country in the Arabian peninsula started to bomb the poorest country in the region back to the stone age, arms worth in excess of 1.8 billion euros ($1.96 billion) were exported from the European Union to Saudi Arabia. In 2016, the German Ministry of Economy issued export licenses for weapons sold to Saudi Arabia worth more than 500 million euros ($544 million). Great Britain, France and especially the US are also among those who, acting resourcefully and displaying high levels of entrepreneurial flair, make sure that the Saudi arms, bombs and missile depots remain fully replenished, despite constant deployment on a massive scale. 

The situation could even become dramatically worse because the Saudi-led coalition plans to launch an offensive against Hodeida, a Red Sea port held by the Houthi-Saleh bloc. That port's capacity has been dramatically reduced already due to Saudi airstrikes. In spite of that, it is still the central hub when it comes to supplying Yemen with food and relief aid. If the port comes under attack, the current mass starvation would turn into a death trap. The coalition's argument that  Hodeida must be seized in order to halt arms supplies to the Houthi-Saleh bloc and force them to the negotiating table is not convincing: the UN special envoy's recent peace initiative was rejected by the Saudi-backed government of exiled president Hadi. And all ships approaching the port have been inspected by the coalition for quite some time already.

In this war, there can't be any military victory - this insight was even shared by US Defense Minister James Mattis when he visited Riyadh recently. Those who care about the people of Yemen must, therefore, bring the warring parties to the negotiating table. To this end, pressure must be put on Riyadh, which, thus far, has rejected everything that didn't amount to a capitulation of the Houthi-Saleh alliance. In this situation, an arms embargo targeting Saudi Arabia could be a start that's long overdue.