People have taken to the streets of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, and several other locations across Yemen to condemn the siege imposed by the Saudi-led coalition against their impoverished country, urging the Yemeni forces to intensify their retaliatory attacks against the aggressor regimes.
Yemenis staged protests in several districts in Sana’a, Hudaydah, and Raymah after Friday prayers to condemn the sustained blockade imposed on the Red Sea port of Hudaydah, which is a lifeline for millions of Yemenis.
The protesters said the seizure of fuel ships was a “deliberate” attempt to make the Yemeni people suffer.
They also stressed that the schemes to starve Yemenis “would not succeed in bringing the Yemeni people to their knees.”
The demonstrators also stressed that the ongoing siege would have “dire consequences,” urging the Yemeni army and their allied fighters from popular committees to intensify their “painful strikes” on targets deep inside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in response to the crimes committed by the coalition.
They said the siege imposed by the Saudi-led coalition was “an American decision,” denouncing the United Nations’ silence on the blockade.
Essam al-Mutawakel, a spokesman for the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC), said earlier this month that the Arab country was experiencing the toughest crisis since the start of the Saudi aggression and siege nearly seven years ago.
Yemen’s Minister of Oil and Minerals Ahmad Abdullah Dares has warned that the Saudi seizure of ships carrying petroleum products to Yemen could lead to the suspension of the service sectors and cause “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
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Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), launched a brutal war against Yemen in March 2015. The war was meant to eliminate Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall a former regime. The conflict, accompanied by a tight siege, has failed to reach its goals but has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people.
The Saudi-led coalition has been preventing fuel shipments from reaching Yemen while looting the impoverished nation’s resources. The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.
The UN refers to the situation in Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
