Yemeni misery

The Nobel Women's Initiative demanded that Saudi Arabia and its allies end their humanitarian blockade on wartorn Yemen.

The six former Nobel laureates Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland, Rigoberta Menchú Tum of Guatemala, Jody Williams of the United States, Shirin Ebadi of Iran, Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia condemned violations and crimes perpetrated on civilians by "all parties in the current conflict," explicitly including Iran — thought to support the Houthi rebels. 

The blockade was denying "live-saving” humanitarian assistance to more than 20 million people, they said, including "at least 7 million — mostly children and women — close to famine.

The regional head of the child agency UNICEF, Geert Cappelaere, said Yemeni children afflicted by preventable diseases were dying at a rate of one every 10 minutes. "The absence of a political solution to the Yemeni crisis is deplorable," he said.