Coronavirus rages through more provinces in war-ravaged Yemen

Edited by Ed Newman
2020-05-13 19:42:46

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Children return home with water amid a severe shortage in Yemeni city of Aden.  (Photo: AFP)

Aden, May 13 (RHC)-- The new coronavirus outbreak continues to claim more lives in Yemen as the impoverished country is already grappling with deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the wake of years-long Saudi aggression.

The viral pandemic spread in three more southern Yemeni provinces on Tuesday, according to official reports, and took the total number of infections across the war-ravaged country to 65, with the number of fatalities standing at 10.  The new infection cases were reported in the in the provinces of Aden, Abyan, Mahrah and Shabwah.

The World Health Organization has warned that the outbreak could rip through the war-torn country as the population has some of the lowest level of immunity to disease.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in order to bring former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past five years.

On April 8, the Saudi-led coalition claimed it was halting military attacks and suspending hostilities in support of the United Nations' peace efforts, and to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus in Yemen.

However, shortly after the announcement, the coalition’s warplanes struck positions at several Yemeni regions and the onslaught still goes on.

More than half of Yemen’s hospitals and clinics have been destroyed or closed during the war by the Saudi-led coalition, which is supported militarily by the UK, US and other Western nations.  At least 80 percent of the 28 million-strong population is also reliant on aid to survive in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.


 



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