With a recent upsurge in fighting in Yemen, the forthcoming rainy season and tightening of borders due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, there’s no end in sight to the daily toll of death, disease and displacement five years after the conflict escalated, Oxfam warned today.
Yemen is suffering a forgotten cholera crisis, Oxfam said today, as it warned the number of people there with the disease could spiral as the country approaches rainy season in April and health systems are close to collapse.
Oxfam and eleven other aid agencies have called on the Saudi-led coalition to lift restrictions on Yemeni airspace in order to allow for the reopening of the country’s main airport, Sana’a International, and to allow humanitarian flights to resume.
The agencies call on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians, facilitate safe passage of those trapped in conflict areas, allow humanitarian access to those in need and cease damage to vital infrastructure.
In an open letter sent today, Oxfam, Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, Action Contre La Faim and seven other agencies urge the UN Security Council to press parties in the Yemen conflict to implement an immediate ceasefire and kick-start the peace process.
While we are encouraged by the Chair statements and the Summit deliberations, Oxfam believes that African leaders have let African women down, in their effort to end the conflict and find a peaceful resolution to years of brutality and violence that ripped the continent.
Lack of fuel in Yemen caused by the continuing conflict and restrictions of imports could ultimately be responsible for even more deaths than the fighting in the country, Oxfam warned today.