VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].
Obama’s war on Yemen, escalated by Trump, bears full responsibility for what Oxfam calls the worst outbreak of cholera “ever recorded in any country in a single year.”
Since April, they’ve been over 360,000 known cases, likely many more not officially reported, numbers rising exponentially.
By end of summer, they could double because of devastating war, creating conditions for the outbreak and spread of the disease.
It’s an infection of the small intestine, caused by contaminated food or water.
Symptoms include uncontrolled watery diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, rapid heart rate, and abdominal cramps, among others. Untreated severe cases can cause death.
Over two years of US-supported Saudi terror-bombing targeted residential areas, hospitals and medical clinics, mosques, schools, food storage areas, and other civilian targets.
Yemen, the region’s poorest country in more normal times, is devastated by naked aggression, cholera and other diseases, famine and overall deprivation – the world community doing virtually nothing to stop the carnage.
Arms makers love it, profiting from genocide, destruction and human misery.
There’s no end of it in sight, civilians harmed most. A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from war-related malnutrition and starvation alone – a shocking indictment of imperial viciousness.
Weapons and munitions makers share guilt with America, Riyadh and their warring partners – guilty of the supreme high crime against peace.
Genocide stalks Yemen – terror-bombing and blockade creating famine and rampant diseases as a weapon of war.
Around 2,000 Yemenis died from cholera, according to estimates, likely many more, maybe multiples more than the reported number.
After returning from a fact-finding mission to the country, Oxfam’s humanitarian director Nigel Timmins said the following:
“It is quite frankly staggering that in just three months more people in Yemen have contracted cholera than any country has suffered in a single year since modern records began.”
“Cholera has spread unchecked in a country already on its knees after two years of war and which is teetering on the brink of famine. For many people, weakened by war and hunger, cholera is the knockout blow.”
“This is a massive crisis needing a massive response – if anything, the numbers we have…likely… underestimate the scale of the crisis. So far funding from government donors to pay for the aid effort has been lackluster at best, less than half is what is needed.”
“Cholera is easy to treat and simple to prevent. We need a massive well coordinated effort to get clean water and decent sanitation to people and simple things like soap to keep them safe from disease. We need an end to country entry restrictions of supplies and people so that we can get on with the job.”
“The war has destroyed the economy and left millions without jobs or the means to earn a living and forced 3 million people to flee their homes.”
“It has precipitated a crisis which has left 7 million people on the brink of starvation. And the war has destroyed or damaged more than half the country’s health facilities and ushered in one of the world’s worst cholera outbreaks in over 50 years.”
“Vital public servants such as health workers have not been paid for nearly a year. Hospitals, ports, roads and bridges have been bombed. All this is crippling efforts to tackle the cholera crisis.”
“Those countries providing the arms and military support, such as the US and the UK, are fueling a war that is causing widespread suffering and tipping a whole nation towards a catastrophe.”
“It is hard to imagine how much more Yemen can take before it collapses entirely.”
Explaining the horror of conditions doesn’t get more stark than that. The death toll is likely multiples more than officially reported, mostly affecting civilians, the scale of human suffering beyond what words can explain.
All essentials to life are in short supply or unavailable to millions. Most Yemenis have no access to clean water and sanitation. Millions face potential starvation.
The only viable solution is ending devastating war, carnage and blockade. Otherwise millions of Yemenis could perish if ongoing horrors continue endlessly.
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
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