“ZERO HOUR” on FB, writes:
“Multiply prayers of supplication and seek forgiveness. Allah willing !
Honor the banner of Islam, the real green banner.
Multiply the real zoom. Allah Akbar, there is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah:
.. For our Leader is alive; and everything that is going on in Libya, he has seen it…all the Bs!
Commander of what Lippi knows, Libyans even seen lying, and false media Elly, Issued by the traitors and agents.
We also have Khamis, and a thousand good leaders, yes, a thousand good,
who are protected by Allah Almighty !”
. ﻋﻠﻴﻜﻢ ﺑﺎﻟﺪﻋﺎﺀ ﺍﻛﺜﺮﻭﺍ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺪﻋﺎﺀ ﻭﺍﻻﺳﺘﻐﻔﺎﺭ . ﺑﺎﺫﻥ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ
ﺣﺎﻧﺪﺧﻠﻮﺍ ﻟﺴﺮﺕ ﻭﻭﻧﺮﻓﻊ ﻓﻴﻬﺎ ﺭﺍﻳﺔ ﺍﻻﺳﻼﻡ ﺍﻟﺤﻘﻴﻘﻲ ﺍﻟﺮﺍﻳﺔ ﺍﻟﺨﻀﺮﺍﺀ .
ﺍﻛﺜﺮﻭﺍ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺘﻜﺒﻴﺮ ﺍﻟﺤﻘﻴﻘﻲ . ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﺍﻛﺒﺮ ﻻ ﺇﻟﻪ ﺍﻻ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﺭﺳﻮﻝ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ
.. ﺑﺎﻟﻨﺴﺒﺔ ﻟﻠﻘﺎﺋﺪ ﻣﻮﺟﻮﺩ ﺣﻲ ﻳﺮﺯﻕ ﻭﻛﻞ ﻣﺎ ﻳﺠﺮﻱ ﻓﻲ ﻟﻴﺒﻴﺎ ﻳﺸﺎﻫﺪ ﻓﻴﻪ
ﺑﺲ ﺍﻟﻘﺎﺋﺪ ﻣﺎ ﻳﺒﻲ ﻳﻄﻠﻊ ﺣﺘﻰ ﻳﻌﺮﻑ ﺍﻟﻠﻴﺒﻴﻦ ﺍﻟﻜﺬﺏ ﻭﺍﻻﻋﻼﻡ ﺍﻟﻜﺎﺫﺏ ﺍﻟﻠﻲ
ﻳﺼﺪﺭ ﻣﻦ ﺍﻟﺨﻮﻧﺔ ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻤﻼﺀ ﺧﻤﻴﺲ ﺑﺎﻟﻒ ﺧﻴﺮ ﻭﺍﻟﻘﻴﺎﺩﺍﺕ ﺑﺎﻟﻒ ﺧﻴﺮ
ﻭﺣﺎﻣﻴﻬﻢ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﺳﺒﺤﺎﻧﻪ ﻭﺗﻌﺎﻟﻲ
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/entry.php?483-al-GADAFI-is-alive-and-well
فضلكم المشككين، أعمى من جانب وسائل الإعلام الكيب الفئران.اقرأ كل الصفحات 10 … ‘ساعة الصفر’ هو حق % 100
—
for MU’AMMAR al-Qathafi & HIS FAMILY:
‘BLACK LIBYAN RESISTANCE’:
on the occasion of Eid al-Adha, re-union, joy and victory!
—
JUMA THOUGHTS:
‘The children of Sheikh Abdul Salam Asmar’:
Each year, we are well on the occasion sweet ‘Eid al-Adha’ re us and you and bug all the Islamic nation well, Yemen and blessings and Allah accepts us,
and from you the benefit of the business, and ask Allah to bless us and our country’s ‘Green’ are near victory (green standard, and Rais Muammar al-Qathafi).
…
أولاد الشيخ عبدالسلام الاسمر
كل عام وأنتم بخير بمناسبة حلو عيد الأضحى المبارك اعاده علينا وعليكم وعلة جميع الأمة اﻹسلاميه بالخير واليمن والبركات وتقبل الله منا ومنكم صالح اﻷعمال ونسال الله تعالى أن يمن علينا وعلى بلادنا الحبيه بفرج والنصر القريب (الرايه خضراء والرايس معمر القدافى )
____________________________
Vthy Ryany has Allah in his blood.
A young fighter and Mujahid, has devoted all his time in the defense of Libya.
We find, in all the events and national celebrations, and the owner of the word, and subjected to Taadib by militias of Misurata, and then thrown on the road.
He has been moved to treatment in Tunisia, and has another audio post with his colleagues across ‘al-Lowaecat room Hadit’, in the latest developments in the country, which is being plotted.
Lord have mercy and Aghafrlh.
(“Knight and Men”)
____________________________
Missing
Hello
Hedda Khoi named Issa Mohammed Nawas born today came up 99 times just Crown Marouhh of habits and mesh and mesh delayed Heca phone with him and all the companions Mayarfush Wayne him busy for God Khota was fairly eradication Aoaaraf place Hedda Boy figures
0913800926
0928933989
For God Anscheroha P pages and Alkarobat CAP Tarafohm and Adoaolna Erdholna Salem Lord God and my mother her heart seared him.
(‘Militant Arabism’)
___________________________________
TRIPOLI:
Sinking in most areas of the capital Tripoli water after heavy rains today.
—
TRIPOLI PLATEAU:
A young man found dead with signs of torture in the plateau region. Evidence claims he was ‘Adam Abdul Karim Adam’ resident of the Fashlum area.
—
AIN ZARA:
PRISON:
Hear the shooting inside the eye Prison Department and declare a state of emergency in the prison and the closure of all roads leading to the prison and a security gate at the gas station triangle al-Kerkna within the administrative boundaries of the municipal council called us Ain Zara.
—-
FRIDAY MARKET:
Knight Libby’, comments:
Friday Market Where ???
Friday Market after February
After the burning of police stations and security and the storming of army positions
After participating in the fall of Tripoli, received by the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’,
After taking part in the storming of Bani Walid and killed their families
After participating in the bombing and destruction of their homes and Rishvana,… and the displacement of people,
After the award Mitigua (to be supporters of the regime who fought NATO prison). And the granting of its airport to be a flight to Belhadj company. And to provide her children to be led by Karh boys about death and delinquency.
Friday Market today not only reap the death of children and malice areas and the collapse of institutions and service agencies. The picture was informed of any expression.
With emphasis that a lot of free and honorable men, who refused to be part of the conspiracy, have endured abuse and displacement and imprisoned unjustly, we still have patience. They have pride, pride and honor. We are all counting on them, to return the region, to rid it of traitors and agents and hypocrites, who Spitzer to this case ...
______________________________________________
GREEN NAFUSA WESTERN MOUNTAINS:
RISHVANA:
GLOBE:
Then find: ‘Haj Ali Amer Obojl’, in the area of the Globe. Now he is in a hospital, after his loss during the incident at Tdaf Mny. He is in good health, thank Allah.
(“Knight and Men”)
____________________________
WESTERN REGION:
ZUWARAH:
Zuwarah City-centre, Market in 2008:
An armed group stormed and burned the gas station at the western entrance to ZUWARAH (‘visitors’), through Ztun;
and, burned cars were present in the station….
and in front of everyone, they fled Azh.
—-
SABRATHA:
The eastern gate of Sabratha, propelled RBG targeted militias, in the early hours of the morning.
____________________________________________________________
CENTRAL REGION:
BANI WALID:
The people of the city came out in BANI WALID to protest the anniversary of the ‘third annual decision unjust RESOLUTION N° 7’.
‘Room Zintan operations’:
On the anniversary of ‘the invasion of Bani Walid’
al-Aqrar Gair Resolution n°7
Why and former Defense Minister Osama Jeweilli said the decision was ‘RESOLUTION N° 7’ ?
Of history
https://www.facebook.com/1495620557341842/videos/vb.1495620557341842/1675127649391131/?type=2&theater
01:45
Ahmed Salama, writes:
“Osama Juweilli was one of the strongest opponents to the formation of the ‘MB armor-Shields’. He did not support any armed formation.
From the beginning, was a condition, that any who Baniz Army, needed sober individuals, and not formations who have allegiance to great princes Hrb.khtaeh.
He put chiselled in the General Staff and lost control of it.”
غرفة عمليات الزنتان
في ذكرى أجتياح بني وليد
#القرار_الجائر_رقم_7
ماذا قال وزير الدفاع الاسبق أسامة جويلي عن القرار 7 ؟
#للتاريخ
—–
dirty MISURATA:
Misurata militias demolishing ‘Abdul-Salam M’Hamed’ black neo-natal home last night, home ground and Villa Doreen !!
Why they ousted … !!!!!
Dskh arrows pension complement … !!!!
(“Knight and Men”)
____________________________________________
CYRENAICA:
SIRTE:
‘Daash’ Libya imposes a fine on those who go out without veils.
An armed group affiliated to ‘Daash’, besieged terrorist Haj Aboubacr Tahir al-Qduari al-Qmavi’s home and arrested his three 3 sons.
—
ABU-HADI:
The names of young people who were kidnapped by organization of terrorism, ‘Daash’.
1 __ civil Aharir
2 __ punishment Abdulhadi Al-Qduari
3 __ Nice and Mohammed Hussein
4 __ Hassan Capricorn
5 __ forms of birth
6 __abdal-lslam the serious, Faraj victory
‘Daash’ terrorist organization caught the Qadhadhfa tribe at ABU- HADI, and kidnapped a number of youth from theTribe.
—
BIN JAWAD:
Thunderstorm sweeping the region Bin Jawad.
—
BENGHAZI:
Saqr Tajoura, comments rightfully:
The ‘Libyan Army’ in Benghazi, is a lump in the throat of the ‘Muslim’ Brotherhood.
Operations (naval-air-ground) targeting the rest of the sites within the heretics in Benghazi.
‘Thunderbolt Special Forces’ urgently ask the inhabitants of the city of Benghazi to remain in their homes and not to walk around in the city, because of the high frequency of violent clashes taking place in the city of Benghazi.
—
MILKFISH:
A burning car citizens in the ‘jar Island’ area today because of ‘milkfish’ bullet Anti Air 14.5
___________________________________________________
TUNISIA:
Tunisia prevents the entry of Libyans less than 35 years of age, unless they are accompanied by their family.
________________________________________
YEMEN:
JIZAN:
al-KHUBA:
QAMAR VILLAGE:
New scenes from Jizan – Qamar village:–
Watch destroyed the Saudi military vehicles and tanks.
17 minute full of destroyed vehicles ..
Nothing hard .. nothing difficult by the grace of Allah.
—
JIZAN:
al-HATHERA:
Sharaf Addeen al-Wainani
https://www.facebook.com/sharafaddeen.alwainani/videos/vb.100007260815078/1625693571015988/?type=2&theater
New Great scenes from al-Hathera military base in Jizan, full of Action and Horror:-
Actions you won’t watch it in Hollywood ^^
By the grace of Allah, Yemeni forces breakin into al-Hathera military base and defeating out the Saudi army and taking control of the whole base.
Watch bombing the fence from many sides to let the Yemeni forces enter the base.
Watch the Yemeni forces entering the village from many sides, while the Saudi army run away out of the village and the military base from one side .. which is the run away road :
At the end, al-Hathera village and military base became under the full control of the ‘Yemeni Army’ and ‘Popular Committees’.
—
Sharaf Addeen al-Wainani a partagé la publication de محمد عبدالسلام.
Breaking:-
‘Yemeni Army’ and ‘Popular Committees’ take control of 4 military bases behind al-Hathera in Jizan.
.
The official spokesman of ‘Ansar-Allah’, Mohammed Abdul-Salam.
The aggression war-planes launch led air strikes on al-Khuba city of JIzan, after failing in restoring the bases which became under the control of Yemeni forces.
‘Yemeni Army’ and ‘People’s Committees’ took control of Saudi military bases in al-Khuba among the operations in Jizan, Despite the heavy air strikes.
The leader of the brigade 18 in Jizan, Brigadier-general ‘Ibrahim al-Hamzi’ has been killed by the Yemeni forces. The found his dead body today in Jizan.
(The official spokesman of ‘Ansar-Allah’, Mohammed Abdul-Salam.)
محمد عبدالسلام
بتوفيق الله وعونه تم صباح اليوم إسقاط طائرة أباتشي خلف موقع الحثيرة السعودي بمنطقة جيزان .
كما قـُتل 13 جنديا حاولوا التقدم باتجاه الموقع ..
والحمد لله رب العالمين ولا عدوان إلا على الظالمين …
—
Sharaf Addeen al-Wainani a partagé sa photo.
By the grace of Allah,
the Yemeni forces has shot down an Apache copter behind al-Hathera military base in Jizan, as well as killing 13 Saudi soldier tried to advance into the base.
Today, the 9th Saudi Apache copter (American made) being shot down by the ‘Yemeni Army’ and ‘Popular Committees’.
I searched on google and found that its price = 65 million $ !!
9 * 65 = 585 million $
This is the Saudi losses just for the Apache copter.
If this is a wrong information, please correct me.
Taking into consideration that these operations has distorted the value of the American weapons of Apache, Aprams, Bradley and so on ..
________________________________
SAUDI ARABIA:
…killed more than a thousand and two hundred and seventy-one
pilgrims (as of this writing), and hundreds of wounded near the scene of the stoning ritual in the holy sites.
Catastrophe in Saudi Arabia, Pillar of Washington’s Middle East Policy
By Bill Van Auken
Global Research, 25 SEPTEMBER 2015
a far more specific reason for King Salman’s disclaimer, one involving his son and eventual heir, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud.
The Lebanese daily Al Diyar reported late Thursday that the stampede was triggered by the arrival on the scene of a large militarized convoy transporting the 30-year-old deputy crown prince, who is also the country’s defense minister.
“The large convoy of Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, the King’s son and deputy crown prince, that was escorted by over 350 security forces, including 200 army men and 150 policemen, sped up the road to go through the pilgrims that were moving towards the site of the ‘Stoning the Devil’ ritual, causing panic among millions of pilgrims who were on the move from the opposite direction and caused the stampede,”
the newspaper reported.
The formal title of Saudi Arabia’s king is “the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques [Mecca and Medina].” Thursday’s disaster, which follows close on the heels of another 107 deaths in a September 11 crane collapse at Mecca’s Grand Mosque, inevitably is politically damaging to the monarchy. If his son played a direct role in triggering the mass slaughter, it may well prove fatally destabilizing.
Indeed, on the eve of the latest disaster, a letter surfaced written by an unnamed grandson of King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, calling on the royal family to convene an “emergency meeting” essentially for the purpose of deposing the king and his key supporters.
The letter indicts Saudi interventionism in Yemen and Syria as “totally miscalculated” acts that have “weakened the trust of our people and [incited] other people against us.”
The letter concludes by asking the House of Saud to “isolate the incapable King Salaman, the extravagant and vain Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, and the rotten thief Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salaman.”
As defense minister, the deputy crown prince is no stranger to mass killings and contempt for human life. He has been the monarchy’s point man in the six-month-old Saudi-led war against Yemen, pitting the monarchical dictatorships of the richest countries of the Arab world against the people of the poorest.
Saudi warplanes, supplied, armed and refueled in mid-air by the Pentagon, have carried out non-stop bombings that have killed thousands of civilians while destroying schools, hospitals, factories, residential neighborhoods and world heritage sites. More than 1.5 million people have been driven from their homes, and at least 21 million, 80 percent of the country’s population, have been left in desperate need of humanitarian aid.
The war is part of a more bellicose foreign policy pursued by the Saudi monarchy since the succession of King Salman at the beginning of this year. It is directed in the first instance against Iran and all those perceived to be in its orbit. This has included not only the Houthi rebels in Yemen, but also Syria, where Saudi money and arms have been key to the war for regime change fought by Al Qaeda-linked militias, also with US coordination and backing.
War abroad has been combined with the intensification of hideous repression at home. The Saudi regime is already on track to double its number of executions compared to last year. According to an Amnesty International tally issued in late August, the regime put to death, either by beheadings or firing squads, at least 175 people over the previous 12 months. This is more than triple the number of state killings carried out during the same period in the US, which has 10 times the population of the Saudi kingdom.
In the face of international outrage, the despotic monarchy is preparing to execute Ali al-Nimr, who was arrested as a 17-year-old high school student for taking part in a 2011 protest. He is sentenced to death by beheading, with his headless corpse to be publicly crucified. Like most sentenced to die, he was convicted in a drumhead trial, based on a confession extracted through torture.
Incredibly, Saudi Arabia has recently been selected to chair a key UN human rights panel. A State Department spokesman this week said that Washington “welcomes” this grotesque move, because Saudi Arabia is a “close ally.”
As the proverb says, “by your friends shall ye be known.” That Saudi Arabia is Washington’s closest ally in the Arab world is the clearest exposure of the predatory and criminal character of US imperialism’s protracted intervention in the Middle East.
It likewise is an undeniable refutation of every propaganda claim made to justify the successive US wars of aggression. Washington has supposedly waged a “war on terrorism,” while allied with a Saudi regime that is the principal font of Islamist ideology and main paymaster for Islamist militias throughout the region. It has claimed to wage proxy wars for regime change in Libya and Syria in the name of “human rights” and “democracy”, while giving its unconditional backing to one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies, infamous for its beheadings, floggings and torture.
In the final analysis, however, that Washington counts on Saudi Arabia as a pillar for its drive for hegemony over the Middle East only underscores the fact that US imperialism’s policy resembles nothing so much as a house of cards, set to collapse into new and ever greater debacles in the face of inevitable crises and mounting social struggles.
Copyright © Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site, 2015
—
Yemen as Laboratory: Why is the West So Silent About This Savage War?
By Martha Mundy, in “COUNTERPUNCH”:
What is at stake in Yemen that far more systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions than in any of the recent wars which Western powers have supported in the Arab world (Iraq, Syria, Libya and Gaza) are met with resounding silence?
For six months there has been a blockade of food and fuel, and management of aid (even that through the UN) as part of war strategy, bombing of civilian, historical, educational, religious and medical targets, destruction of infrastructure from roads to electricity and water, and use of prohibited weapons.
All of this occurs in a country of over twenty million persons, which has no effective air defences – a country as open to aerial bombardment as Gaza. Yet as an Israeli Foreign Ministry official has pointed out, the principles of international humanitarian law systematically violated in Yemen are those invoked by UN bodies, governments, the Western media, and civil organisations when they charge Israel with the commission of war crimes in Gaza.
In other words, by its silence and support for Coalition bombing in Yemen, the international community completes the erasure of legal reference in war.
That is a big price to pay for success in a conflict seemingly so minor it receives virtually no press coverage.
….So what else is at stake that the Coalition has been left to bomb Yemen for six months to the sound of world silence?
Is it just money? Obviously Saudi Arabia (with more British airplanes than the British army) and the GCC can buy a lot of media, weapons, and people. Yet the support of the US, France and the UK to the Coalition goes beyond what money can buy, even today. So what else is at stake?
A tentative answer:
The French, who are facilitating the naval blockade, still have a base in Djibouti. It allows them to continue as players in a global network (Diego Garcia and 1400 US overseas bases) expanded from the days of the Cold War. Today, Djibouti’s major function may be not just above, but under, water: to watch the communication cables, which pass between China, Asia and the West that lie on the sea bed. Although all that visitors to Djibouti may see are French army frogmen diving to check the cables, there must be wider coordination with the Israeli submarines patrolling in the Red Sea.
The Coalition is meant to be the first exercise of a GCC ‘rapid deployment force’ advised discreetly by Israeli and American officers. Such coordination in the attack of an Arab country is novel. How has this been marketed? The rage provoked by the deaths of the invading GCC forces in Mar`ib suggests that Yemen was dreamt of as a training programme for wars modelled on recent Israeli ones – a war to be determined by aerial bombardment, but without the international outrage at war crimes that Israel suffers.
Yemen as a laboratory for new wars? It seems bizarre since, compared to Gaza, Yemen is far larger, intelligence mapping of the population far poorer, and there is still something of a ground army standing. But if one remembers how Yemen has served as a laboratory for US drones, including targeted assassination of a US citizen, perhaps it was so marketed.
Indeed there is something glossy about the way the war was sold to the GCC leaders (GCC minus Oman which refused to participate) even if we, the general public, haven’t seen the brochures. For the Emiratis it was to lead to ‘the City of Light’ (al-Noor Yemen) of booming commerce on the Indian Ocean and open to East Africa but subject to the management choices of Dubai. To the Saudi very much more was promised: unified control of ‘The Empty Quarter’ and its fabled unexploited quantities of oil and gas which the US guarded in the ground so long as the government was Yemeni; practice in making and unmaking societies and governments by precision bombing of a population dependent on food imports; and a victory so stunning, the Arabian Peninsula becoming effectively theirs, that peace with Israel could soon be publically celebrated.
In early June at a Council on Foreign Relations event, retired Major General Anwar Eshki of Saudi Arabia laid out the package. He was joined at the event by Ambassador Dore Gold of Israel. What Eshki said is not news in Saudi Arabia. But it is not often spoken out aloud, and certainly not reported with any measure of diligence in the West. Here is Eshki’s package:
In the Arabian Peninsula, there is a promising oil field in the Empty Quarter [Rub’al-Khali] that will obligate the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Yemen to cooperate to protect it and its gains. This unity will be modeled—or rather, must be modeled—on the U.S. constitution that united America and granted it its democracy. As for the promising Ogaden [oil] field in Ethiopia, it will unite the Horn of Africa under Ethiopia’s leadership. And a bridge shall be built between the African continent and the Arabian Peninsula: The Al-Noor Bridge that shall connect the city of Al-Noor in Djibouti and the city of Al-Noor in Yemen.
All this demands a number of things:
1 Achieving peace between Arabs and Israel.
2 Changing the political system in Iran.
3 Unity of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
4 Achieving peace in Yemen and revitalizing the port of Aden because this will rebalance the demographics of employment in the Gulf.
5 Establishing an Arab force with American and European blessing to protect the countries of the Gulf as well as the Arab countries and to safeguard stability.
6 The speedy establishment of the foundations of democracy with Islamic principles in the Arab world.
7 Working toward the creation of a greater Kurdistan in peaceful ways as this will weaken Iranian, Turkish, and Iraqi ambitions and would split up a third of each of these countries in favor of Kurdistan.”
Why is the West so silent about Yemen? Perhaps these seven points provide the elements of an answer.
(Martha Mundy is an anthropologist, who worked in North Yemen from 1973 to 1977. Her book, Domestic Government: Kinship, Community and Politics in North Yemen (1995), is a contemporary classic. She is now working on the political economy of food in Yemen.?)
Copyright © Martha Mundy, CounterPunch, 2015
—
http://www.sott.net/article/299863-Yemen-Under-reporting-of-war-deaths-or-genocide
Puppet Masters
Yemen: Under-reporting of war deaths – or genocide?
Dr. Judith Brown
Yemen News Today
Fri, 31 July 2015 11:41 UTC
© AFP
Yemeni men stand amid the ruins of buildings destroyed in an airstrike by Saudi Arabia on the capital, Sana’a, July 16, 2015
The estimates of numbers killed in this terrible war have varied from website to website. On the 31st July FARS news agency reported the number killed as 5,313 people, most of them women and children. Al Jazeera quoted UN statistics on 27th July, stating that 3,640 have died altogether, about half of them civilians deaths. I believe both of these numbers hide the truth, and the number of those who have died is much, much higher.
Systems of recording deaths in Yemen during the war are not straightforward, hence the differences in death counts. Some agencies count deaths that have been reported in the media, but this is a multi-focal war, with both militia activity and air assaults by the coalition happening in all of the areas except Hadramaut, and journalists cannot access all areas where people are being attacked. As the war progresses, deaths in Yemen have become less newsworthy as it has become so commonplace and the Western media have not seriously tried to give the war in Yemen the coverage it deserves. Furthermore, militias and fighting forces have an interest in under-reporting any of their own fighters killed by the other ‘side’ as militia and military deaths have a propaganda purpose; these deaths can only be estimated.
Another way of collecting information about those killed is from hospitals and medical sources. However, many hospitals have themselves been out of action, either because of destruction caused by war activity, because of loss of personnel due to the conflict, or because they have run out of medical equipment and may have disruption of water and electricity supplies making it impossible to function. Additionally, many who died at the site of an attack will not be included in hospital statistics
Then there is the nature of Yemen itself. In rural mountainous areas Yemeni families bury the deceased in their own villages, and with the ongoing conflict there is no system for these deaths to be immediately recorded. In some areas, especially the north-west, villages are inside conflict zones and not excluded from serious effects of warfare. The lack of fuel also means that moving injured to hospital is a challenge, for example, a recent report from journalist Mathieu Aikins “Yemen’s Hidden War” published by Rollingstone, stated that whilst he was in Yemen injured people were brought into a hospital in Saada from a village – he pointed to the difficulties in getting the casualties to hospital, with little petrol available, and for many the cost prohibits access to petrol. Apart from the blockade by Saudi Arabia, 180 petrol stations have been bombed in Saada area. For those few who manage to get their injured loved ones to hospital, inevitably many others will have failed and the injured may have died from lack of medical care.
Saada has been subject to daily extensive aerial bombardment by Saudi Arabia throughout the war, causing extensive displacement of families
Aikins also points out that in the areas he passed through in the Sana’a and northwest areas almost all bridges have been bombed, making communication and movement extremely difficult. In a radio report on Radio 4 on 27th July, MSF British doctor Natalie Roberts confirmed this and also stated that it is extremely dangerous to drive along roads, because so many cars and trucks – even those with no military use – are regularly targeted. No-one will use roads for routine issues such as reporting deaths, and with severe electricity shortages there may be no means for some villages to communicate with the outside world.
Dr. Natalie Roberts saw food trucks that were recently bombed in Amran district, destroying desperately needed food
The siege has also made it impossible to obtain medicines and medical equipment. This has particularly affected those with chronic illnesses. At times, medicines have been in very limited supply and even the black market has been unable to provide them. This has meant that those with chronic diseases have been at risk, and many have died. Friends have reported that most people on dialysis have died in Sana’a, and also people who need medicines such as insulin have found it difficult to obtain essential medication. Sometimes this has meant that they have had to lower their dosage or change to an alternative medication, often without access to medical advice. Because of the war, non-emergency medical treatment is restricted in many areas; it is hard to imagine that this has not resulted in deaths. These early deaths would have been recorded as due to natural causes, whereas they were due to unnatural warfare and siege conditions under which most Yemeni people are now forced to live.
Examples include a 24 year old man in Aden I know, previously very healthy, who died of malaria because he was not able to obtain medical supplies. In the Guardian newspaper it was reported that an obstetrician stated that two women had died from complications during childbirth, who would not have died but for the war. Some women will no doubt be giving birth at home because it is impossible to get to hospital, increasing risk to mothers and babies. These deaths are hidden from war statistics.
Sources reporting the humanitarian situation in Yemen point to the precarious water supply. Yemen, already short of water, has now moved into an era of critical water shortage since the beginning of war. On 26th May Oxfam reported that two thirds of people in Yemen no longer had access to clean water, and expected that this would cause deaths from water borne diseases. The situation has worsened since then, as some water tanks have suffered bomb damage, and the petrol needed to pump water from deep wells is in even shorter supply. Another problem is a lack of baby milk. It was reported from Yemen sources recently that only 11.9% of Yemeni women are able to exclusively breast feed, a significant fall since last year. The shortage of water, shortage of food and ongoing stress will make it more difficult for women to produce sufficient milk for their babies. The reduction in breast feeding is life threatening for Yemeni babies, especially when it is combined with low availability of milk powders, unclean water supplies, and shortage of fuel to boil water for sterilisation purposes.
Comment: See also:
US-UK-Saudi attacks on Yemen leave 16 million Yemenis without clean water
The charity organization Oxfam says almost two-thirds of the war-hit population in Yemen have no access to clean water as Saudi Arabia continues its deadly airstrikes against the impoverished country.
The aid agency said in a statement on Tuesday that the constant Saudi bombardments have increased the number of Yemenis without clean water to at least 16 million.
Precarious water supply – benefactors in Yemen have supplied water tankers: people are allowed 5 litres every 3 days each. In some areas the supply is less secure due to lack of diesel for water pumps.
UNICEF: 1.3 million children on verge of severe malnution, 16,000 currently being treated, 30.7.2015
Food is also becoming a severe problem as normally 90% of food is imported into Yemen, and the country is under siege making imports impossible. Humanitarian aid delivery is restricted by a Saudi led blockade. Tariq Riebl of Oxfam pointed out that “People are resorting to extreme measures, principally begging. You’ll see this especially with the 1.5 million displaced people…many that have fled suddenly when airstrikes or ground combat erupted. They are leaving behind all their belongings and having no revenue source or income.” Riebl stated that it is difficult to know how many people are dying from the effects of food deprivation because many parts of the country are not accessible and he continued: “The airstrikes have covered the entire country…so it’s difficult to give you an exact figure. In terms of classification, right now 10 out of 22 governorates are classified as Level 4. Level 5 would be famine. Level 4 is critical emergency level. And the rest of the country is in Level 3, which also would be already considered past the emergency threshold. Yemen is one of the most food insecure countries in the world, if not the most.”
As the blockade has reached its fourth month, the effects of the blockade are now causing severe disruption to the food supply and much suffering, and inevitably deaths. Humanitarian aid is said to be arriving in Aden but people there are telling me, and many others tweeting, that they have not yet received help. Food is increasingly expensive in the capital Sana’a, and most residents there are without employment or income, relying on savings. Those who still draw government salaries are mostly not working, and fear their salary will stop as the Houthi led administration is running out of money due to the blockade. Food trucks moving in Amran province have been regularly bombed, according to Natalie Roberts of MSF, creating a disastrous food situation there. The only area which is not under strict blockade is in Hadramaut, where food is entering via Mukalla. The east has a low population as it is a largely a desert region. Although many internally displaced have moved there, this area is not receiving any humanitarian aid. Displaced people in Hadramaut are mostly living on limited savings, rents are extremely high, and food is very expensive, so even in the most stable area in Yemen food security is an important issue.
The ongoing Saudi air bombardment is also causing many deaths, most of them civilian. No area is spared except for Hadramaut in the east, which has had minimal bombing raids so far. For example, in Mocha on the Red Sea coast on 24th July a bombing raid killed between 60-120 civilians, and injured many more, some of whom are seriously ill and with the shortage of medical care it is likely that the death toll will rise. This was not an area where Houthi militias were found; the persons living there worked in an electricity power plant.
Does this amount to genocide? According to the UN:
Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical,racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm tomembers of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and]forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
IDPs are living in tents and home made shelters, with very little protection from the elements.
The Saudis are particularly targeting the Zaidi population in the northwest of Yemen, destroying homes, schools, petrol stations, hospitals, roads, factories, shops, mosques, historical artefacts, a refugee camp and vehicles. Although it was reported that those in Saada were given notice that their homes were about to be destroyed by leafleting prior to main bombing raids, the people living there had few choices. Some organisations claim that the bomb damage in the northwest amounts to war crimes. The majority of people in targeted areas lost their homes, belongings, sources of employment, and income. The destruction of their homes destroyed shelter for families in a hot desert region in midsummer; in winter, high mountainous areas can also experience cold conditions and night frosts, making life without shelter challenging all year round. With the loss of their homes, families also lost access to water, electricity, and cooking facilities. Whilst some of the displaced have moved to the capital Sana’a and other cities, they would not be able to escape to the more stable area of Hadramaut due to their tribal and religious identity, as that area is controlled by extremist Sunni militias with strong anti-Shia sentiments and a fear of Zaidi spies.
A large proportion of the displaced from Saada area have remained in the northwest, finding or building temporary shelter with limited resources. Some have formed camps near to the Saudi border, as many have relatives in Jizan and Najran who might offer them sanctuary, but currently I understand they are denied entry into Saudi Arabia, and a wall prevents them from crossing the border.
Many that remain in the northwest are now trapped, as the severe shortage of petrol, the high cost of travel by bus, and the targeting of vehicles for air attacks on all local roads means that escape is challenging even if living conditions are life threatening.The low numbers of refugees crossing borders only reflects