Tag Archives: Yeman

Arab leaders call for probe into Syria chemical attacks, condemn Iran

Arab leaders pose for the camera, ahead of the 29th Arab Summit in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia April 15, 2018. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

By Stephen Kalin and Sarah Dadouch

DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – An Arab League summit called on Sunday for an international probe into the “criminal” use of chemical weapons in Syria and condemned what it saw as Iran’s interference in the affairs of other countries.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have for decades been locked in a struggle for regional supremacy that is now being played out in proxy wars in several countries, including Yemen and Syria.

“We stress our absolute condemnation of the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people and we demand an independent international investigation to guarantee the application of international law against anyone proven to have used chemical weapons,” said a statement distributed to journalists.

It emphasized the need for a political solution to the multi-sided Syrian war.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have expressed support for Saturday’s missile strikes by the United States, Britain and France against alleged chemical weapons facilities in Syria, while Iraq and Lebanon condemned the strikes.

Damascus denies using or possessing chemical weapons and called the strikes an act of aggression.

Military help over the past three years from Russia and Iran, which also backs Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Shi’ite Muslim militias in Iraq, has allowed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him.

The communique called for more international sanctions on Iran and urged it to withdraw “its militias” from Syria and Yemen.

“The summit condemned Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries, either through igniting sectarian strife or planting militias in Arab countries such as Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, and harboring al Qaeda terrorists,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told a news conference.

Iran, which denies the accusations, rejected the condemnation as the result of Saudi pressure.

“The heavy shadow of destructive Saudi policies is evident in … the final statement of the summit,” Iranian state media quoted Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying in Tehran.

“JERUSALEM SUMMIT”

Saudi Arabia, which takes over the rotating chair of the Arab summit from Jordan, announced that this gathering would be named the “Quds (Jerusalem) Summit”, a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which Arab states condemned.

Delegates pledged to support the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state. King Salman said Saudi Arabia was donating $200 million to help them, including $50 million for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Qatar did not send a senior official, a sign that its 10-month-old dispute with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt is still a long way from being resolved.

The four countries severed diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar last June, accusing it of supporting terrorism. Doha denies the charges and says the boycott is an attempt to impinge on its sovereignty.

Its delegation was headed by its permanent representative to the Arab League, Saif bin Muqaddam al-Buainain, Qatar’s state news agency said.

Most of the 22 other countries sent heads of state or government. Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani headed Qatar’s delegation at last year’s summit in Jordan.

Sheikh Tamim returned to Doha on Saturday from a U.S. trip where he met Trump. Trump publicly sided with the Saudis and Emiratis early in the crisis but is now pushing for a resolution to restore Gulf Arab unity and maintain a united front against Iran.

Asked why Qatar was not on the summit’s agenda, the Saudi foreign minister said: “Because Qatar is not on the agenda. It’s not a big issue. It’s not a big problem. It’s a very, very small problem.”

He said the issue would be resolved if Doha met the boycotting countries’ demands, which include closing the Al Jazeera television station and reducing ties with Iran.

Tunisia will host the next Arab League summit in 2019.

(Additional reporting by Dubai newsroom, writing by Maha El Dahan and Stephen Kalin; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous, Kevin Liffey and Daniel Wallis)

Suspected cholera cases in Yemen hit 1 million: Red Cross

A health worker reviews a list of patients admitted to a cholera treatment center in Sanaa, Yemen

DUBAI (Reuters) – The number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen has hit 1 million, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday, as war has left more than 80 percent of the population short of food, fuel, clean water and access to healthcare.

Yemen, one of the Arab world’s poorest countries, is in a proxy war between the Houthi armed movement, allied with Iran, and a U.S.-backed military coalition headed by Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations says it is suffering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The World Health Organization has recorded 2,219 deaths since the cholera epidemic began in April, with children accounting for nearly a third of infections.

Cholera, spread by food or water contaminated with human faeces, causes acute diarrhea and dehydration and can kill within hours if untreated. Yemen’s health system has virtually collapsed, with most health workers unpaid for months.

On Dec 3, the WHO said another wave of cholera could strike within months after the Saudi-led coalition closed air, land and sea access, cutting off fuel for hospitals and water pumps and aid supplies for starving children.

The ports were closed in retaliation for a missile fired from Yemen by the Houthis. On Wednesday, despite a fresh missile attack on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia said it would allow the Houthi-controled port of Hodeidah, vital for aid, to stay open for a month.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Stranded Yemenis, thousands of others stand to lose ‘golden ticket’ to U.S.

Yemeni Rafek Ahmed Mohammed Al-Sanani (R), 22, and Abdel Rahman Zaid, 26 look through documents as they speak with Reuters in Serdang, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia July 20, 2017.

By Riham Alkousaa and Yeganeh Torbati

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Yemen is urging the U.S. government to take in dozens of Yemenis who traveled to Malaysia in recent months expecting to immigrate to the United States, only to find themselves stranded by President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban.

The ban, which was blocked by lower courts before being partially reinstated by the Supreme Court in June, temporarily bars citizens of Yemen and five other Muslim-majority countries with no “bona fide” connections to the United States from traveling there.

The Supreme Court ruling sharply limited the number of people affected by the ban. Largely unreported has been the fate of one group – thousands of citizens of the six countries who won a randomized U.S. government lottery last year that enabled them to apply for a so-called green card granting them permanent residence in the United States.

In a stroke of bad luck for the lottery winners, the 90-day travel ban will expire on Sept. 27, just three days before their eligibility for the green cards expires. Given the slow pace of the immigration process, the State Department will likely struggle to issue their visas in time.

A recent email from the U.S. government to lottery winners still awaiting their visas warned “it is plausible that your case will not be issuable” due to the travel ban.

The lottery attracts about 14 million applicants each year, many of whom view it as a chance at the “American Dream.” It serves as a potent symbol of U.S. openness abroad, despite the fact that the chance of success is miniscule – about 0.3 percent, or slightly fewer than 50,000, of lottery entrants actually got a green card in 2015.

The program helps to foster an image of America “as a country which welcomes immigrants and immigration from around the world, but also especially from Africa,” said Johnnie Carson, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs during the Obama administration.

Some former diplomats worry the travel ban’s impact on the lottery could tarnish that image of inclusiveness.

“Taking this away from people who have won it is the cruelest possible thing this administration could do,” said Stephen Pattison, a former senior State Department consular official. “It makes us look petty and cruel as a society.”

Reuters spoke to dozens of lottery winners from Yemen, Iran and Syria, including about 20 who are still waiting for their visas to be issued. Many declined to be named so as not to risk their applications but provided emails and other documents to help confirm their accounts.

They described having spent thousands of dollars on the application process, and many said they had delayed having children, sold property and turned down lucrative job offers at home because they assumed they would soon be moving to the United States.

 

AN ARDUOUS JOURNEY

For Yemenis, the situation is particularly difficult. Because the United States does not maintain a diplomatic post in Yemen, its citizens are assigned to other countries to apply for their visas, and many of them to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The journey to a country 4,000 miles (6,400 km) away can be expensive and arduous for Yemenis, whose country, the Middle East’s poorest, is embroiled in a two-year conflict.

Most of the Yemenis who come to Malaysia make their first stop at a high-rise apartment building on the outskirts of the capital, where they have built a small community. Because of immigration restrictions, they are not allowed to work and are slowly running out of money. Most survive from funds donated by other Yemenis or sent by relatives back home.

“Imagine you get notified you got the golden ticket, only to have it yanked away,” said Joshua Goldstein, a U.S. immigration attorney who advises lottery winners.

The so-called “diversity visa” program was passed in its current form by Congress in 1990 to provide a path to U.S. residency for citizens from a range of countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.

Because it has relatively few educational or professional requirements, it tends to attract people from poorer countries. In Ghana and Sierra Leone, for instance, more than 6 percent of the population in each of the West African nations entered the lottery in 2015.

Yemeni officials in Washington launched talks with the State Department this month to find a way to get dozens of Yemeni lottery winners into the United States despite the travel ban, said Yemen’s ambassador to the United States, Ahmed bin Mubarak.

“They’ve been in Malaysia for more than six months and sold everything in Yemen,” bin Mubarak said. “We are doing what we can.”

U.S. officials said they would work with Yemen’s government to help those who qualify for exceptions to the travel ban to be allowed in on a case-by-case basis, said Mohammed al-Hadhrami, a diplomat at Yemen’s embassy in Washington.

A State Department official declined to comment on how the United States was working with Yemen on the issue.

 

‘YANKED AWAY’

It is unclear exactly how many lottery winners are now caught up in the travel ban, which affects Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, but in 2015, more than 10,000 people from the six countries won the lottery, and 4,000 of them eventually got visas.

Yemeni officials provided Reuters with a list of Yemeni lottery winners, mostly in Malaysia, which they have also given to the State Department. It showed 58 Yemenis still waiting for a response to their applications, including some who have been stuck in security checks for more than eight months.

The State Department declined to comment on the figures, but departmental data shows that 206 Yemenis received diversity visas between March and June.

Following the June 26 Supreme Court ruling, State Department officials told lottery winners from the six countries that their visas would not be granted during the 90-day period the travel ban is in place unless they can demonstrate close family ties or other approved connections to a person or institution in the United States, according to an email seen by Reuters.

Yemeni officials are scrambling to help the country’s lottery winners demonstrate how they might qualify for an exemption and are also pushing to get a waiver for those who don’t have any relationships, Hadhrami said.

Rafek Ahmed al-Sanani, a 22-year-old farmer with a high school education, is among the Yemenis stuck in Malaysia. He traveled there in December via a route that included a 22-hour bus ride followed by flights to Egypt, Qatar and finally Malaysia.

“I was the first one to apply for the lottery in my family,” said Sanani, one of nine children in a family from Ibb governorate in Yemen’s north. “I want to come to the United States to learn English and continue my studies.”

Sanani said he had to borrow $10,000 to pay for his trip to Malaysia and living expenses. As he waits to hear the outcome of his application, he is resigned to his fate.

“What can I do?” he said. “I will accept reality.”

 

(Additional reporting by Rozanna Latif in Kuala Lumpur and Yara Bayoumy in Washington; Editing by Sue Horton and Ross Colvin)

 

U.S. to halt some arms sales to Saudi, citing civilian deaths in Yemen campaign

A Saudi soldier fires a mortar towards Houthi movement position, at the Saudi border with Yemen

By Phil Stewart and Warren Strobel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has decided to limit military support to Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen because of concerns over widespread civilian casualties and will halt a planned arms sale to the kingdom, U.S. officials told Reuters.

The United States will also revamp future training of the kingdom’s air force to focus on improving Saudi targeting practices, a persistent source of concern for Washington.

The decision reflects deep frustration within President Barack Obama’s government over Saudi Arabia’s practices in Yemen’s 20-month-old war, which has killed more than 10,000 people and sparked humanitarian crises, including chronic food shortages, in the poorest country in the Middle East.

It could also further strain ties between Washington and Riyadh in the remaining days of Obama’s administration and put the question of Saudi-U.S. relations squarely before the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war in March 2015 and has launched thousands of air strikes against the Iran-allied Houthi movement.

Rights groups say attacks on clinics, schools, markets and factories may amount to war crimes. Saudi Arabia has either denied the attacks or cited the presence of fighters in the targeted areas and has said it has tried to reduce civilian casualties.

An Obama administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said “systemic, endemic” problems in Saudi Arabia’s targeting drove the U.S. decision to halt a future weapons sale involving precision-guided munitions.

“We’ve decided not to move forward with some foreign military sales cases for air-dropped munitions, PGMs (precision-guided munitions),” the official said.

“That’s obviously a direct reflection of the concerns that we have about Saudi strikes that have resulted in civilian casualties,” the official said. A second official confirmed the decision to suspend the sale of certain weaponry.

The officials declined to offer details. But a specific case put on hold appeared to involve the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of guidance systems manufactured by Raytheon Co that convert dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions that can more accurately hit their targets.

At the same time, the United States has decided to increase efforts to address long-standing Saudi concerns by focusing more on border security, the official said. The kingdom has been subject to cross-border attacks by the Iran-allied Houthis.

“They’ve made a very strong request for greater intelligence sharing and more support for their border,” the official said.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi embassy officials.

The White House launched a review of U.S. assistance for the Saudi-led coalition after planes struck mourners at a funeral in the capital, Sanaa, in October, killing 140 people, according to one U.N. estimate.

The United Nations human rights office said in August that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for roughly 60 percent of the 3,800 civilians killed since March 2015.

Human rights groups have criticized the United States for supporting the Saudi war effort by selling the kingdom arms and refueling coalition jets. The United States says it has not vetted or selected Saudi targets in Yemen.

The Obama administration official said the United States would not halt refueling of the Saudi-led coalition planes.

“For now that’s not going to be touched. Again, the review could continue and people could make a different decision in the coming weeks,” the official said.

SMART VERSUS DUMB BOMBS

The decision to suspend the arms sale to the Saudis marks a reversal for the administration. Officials have long argued that supplying so-called “smart weapons” helped in reducing civilian casualties.

Last year, the Obama administration even had the U.S. military send precision-guided munitions from its own stocks to replenish dwindling Saudi-led coalition supplies, a source close to the Saudi government has said.

But that argument ultimately failed to convince the Obama administration during its review, which the first official said was still ongoing.

“It’s not a matter of how smart or dumb the bombs are, it’s that they’re not picking the right targets. The case in point … is the one on the funeral,” the official said.

The airstrikes on the funeral took place after the Saudi-led coalition received incorrect information from Yemeni military figures that armed Houthi leaders were in the area, an investigative body set up by the coalition said in October.

In an effort to reduce civilian casualties, the United States gave the Saudis detailed lists of sites to avoid bombing, Reuters has previously reported. But jets in the Saudi-led coalition have hit at least one target on that list.

US STILL SELLING HELICOPTERS

Earlier this year, the U.S. military reduced the number of U.S. military personnel coordinating with the Saudi-led coalition’s air campaign, slashing it to six people from a peak of 45 personnel.

“Their responsibilities are being adjusted and limited so that they are less enmeshed in some of the offensive operations in Yemen,” the official said.

Reuters reported earlier this year on concerns by some U.S. officials that the United States could be implicated in possible Saudi violations of the laws of war.

In the view of some officials, U.S. refueling and logistical support of Riyadh’s air force – even more than the arms sales – risked making the United States a party to the Yemen conflict under international law.

In May, Washington suspended sales to Riyadh of cluster munitions, which release dozens of bomblets and are considered particularly dangerous to civilians.

Last week, the State Department announced plans to sell Saudi Arabia CH-47F Chinook cargo helicopters and related equipment, training and support worth $3.51 billion. U.S. officials said the weaponry would help Saudi defend its border, not conduct offensive operations in Yemen.

(Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Ross Colvin)

New Famine Fears Loom in Yemen

A nurse checks a boy at a hospital intensive care unit in Sanaa, Yemen

By Jonathan Saul, Noah Browning and Mohammed Ghobari

LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) – Intensive care wards in Yemen’s hospitals are filled with emaciated children hooked up to monitors and drips – victims of food shortages that could get even worse due to a reorganization of the central bank that is worrying importers.

With food ships finding it hard to get into Yemen’s ports due to a virtual blockade by the Saudi-led coalition that has backed the government during an 18-month civil war, over half the country’s 28 million people already do not have enough to eat, according to the United Nations.

Yemen’s exiled president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, last month ordered the central bank’s headquarters to be moved from the capital Sanaa, controlled by Houthi rebels in the north, to the southern port of Aden, which is held by the government. He also appointed a new governor, a member of his government who has said the bank has no money.

Trade sources involved in importing food to the Arab peninsula’s poorest country say this decision will leave them financially exposed and make it harder to bring in supplies.

Diplomats and aid officials believe the crisis surrounding the central bank could adversely affect ordinary Yemenis.

“The politicization of the central bank and attempts by the parties in the conflict to use it as a tool to hurt one another … threaten to push the poorest over the edge,” said Richard Stanforth, humanitarian policy adviser with Oxfam.

“Everything is stacked against the people on the brink of starvation in Yemen.”

The effects of food shortages can already be seen. At the children’s emergency unit at the Thawra hospital in the port of Hodaida, tiny patients with skin sagging over their bones writhe in beds. Hallways and waiting rooms are crowded with parents seeking help for their hungry and dying children.

Salem Abdullah Musabih, 6, lies on a bed at a malnutrition intensive care unit at a hospital in the Red Sea port city of Hodaida, Yemen

Salem Abdullah Musabih, 6, lies on a bed at a malnutrition intensive care unit at a hospital in the Red Sea port city of Hodaida, Yemen September 11, 2016. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

 

Salem Issa, 6, rests his stick-thin limbs on a hospital bed as his mother watches over him. “I have a sick child, I used to feed him biscuits, but he’s sick, he won’t eat,” she said.

A nurse said the ward began taking in around 10 to 20 cases in April, but now struggles with 120 patients per month.

The World Food Programme says half Yemen’s children under five are stunted, meaning they are too short for their age because of chronic malnutrition.

IMPORTERS STRUGGLING

In July, Reuters reported that importers were already struggling to buy food from abroad because $260 million worth of their funds were frozen in Yemeni banks, while Western banks had cut credit lines.

Since then, importers have guaranteed much of the risk of financing shipments themselves.

The decision to move the central bank, seen as the last impartial bastion of the country’s financial system which has helped keep the economy afloat in wartime, is viewed as a major blow for suppliers who are mistrustful of the decision and expect even more chaos ahead. Foreign exchange is already scarce and the sources do not have confidence in the new governor.

All of this will lead to further food disruptions and more hardship for Yemenis already facing impending famine, according to the trade sources.

“We have begun to cancel our forward contracts – it’s just impossible to trade when there is no financial system in place. There is no coverage from the central bank where we can trust them or know them,” said one source.

“This leaves anyone bringing in cargoes completely exposed,” added the source, who declined to be identified due to the worsening security situation and fear of reprisals.

Shipping data showed at least nine vessels carrying supplies such as wheat and sugar were on the way to the Yemeni ports of Hodaida and Salif, but the source said there were worries for forward shipments for late October and November.

A second trade source also active in Yemen confirmed the growing difficulties.

“Western banks are not willing to process payments and the whole system is freezing up. It is an ever growing struggle to do anything commercial,” the second source said.

“Obtaining foreign exchange has to be done through currency smuggling. Yemen is like a country of smugglers now  – this is unacceptable.”

A woman holds her child at the door of her hut in al-Tuhaita district of the Red Sea province of Hodaida, Yemen

A woman holds her child at the door of her hut in al-Tuhaita district of the Red Sea province of Hodaida, Yemen September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

 

DWINDLING RESERVES

The old central bank in the capital Sanaa used Yemen’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves to guarantee shipments into a country which imports 90 percent of its food.

But Hadi disliked the bank paying salaries to his foes in the army and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement opposed to his internationally recognized government.

Struggling to advance on the battlefield and keen to undermine the Houthis, Hadi dismissed the bank’s governor, Mohamed Bin Humam, named Finance Minister Monasser Al Quaiti in his place and decreed the bank be moved to Aden.

It was a sudden decision that aroused suspicion among traders.

“The governor Humam enjoyed the confidence of all parties since he was clearly independent and working in the best interests of Yemen. To now appoint a minister of finance of the government is a retrograde step and none of the traders have any confidence in him or in the bank in Aden,” the first trade source said.

The new governor of the central bank did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Quaiti told the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper on Thursday he had inherited a bank with no money, but he pledged to keep it independent.

Ibrahim Mahmoud, of Yemen’s Social Development Fund, said only an improvement in the country’s financial system and an emergency aid effort could stop the spread of hunger.

“If there is no direct and immediate intervention on behalf of the international community and state organizations, we could be threatened by famine and a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Even though moving the central bank seemed to be aimed at hurting the Houthis, Yemeni economic officials and diplomats say the group has its own financial resources.

Losing out on $100 million in salaries to its fighters as suggested by the new bank governor may hurt the Houthis, but the bank’s closure in Sanaa is likely to hurt ordinary people already suffering from a collapse in the economy due to the war.

“It risks leaving the salaries of more than a million Yemenis unpaid. There may be a long-term effect on the Houthis, but the immediate effect will be on normal people trying to put food on the table,” Yemeni economic analyst Amal Nasser said.

 

(Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Giles Elgood)