The outgoing head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen said on Friday he believes that more people are dying from indirect effects of the conflict now than from bombing, shelling and ground attacks.
Alexandre Faite pointed to more than 2,000 deaths from cholera and acute watery diarrhoea in a little over six months, a crumbling health system, almost no power in most towns, and the absence of key commodities or their availability only at very high prices.
He told a small group of reporters on Friday that he has been travelling to capitals including Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Washington to deliver the message that "the situation in Yemen and the results of indirect effects of the hostilities are really dire".
With the high death toll from cholera, Mr Faite said, "I would personally think … that now more people are dying from the indirect effect of the hostilities."
Civil war in Yemen began six months after Houthi rebels and their allies seized Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in September 2014. A Saudi-led coalition has been trying to restore Yemen's internationally recognised government to power, but the conflict is stalemated, with the Houthis still in control of Sanaa and much of the north.
UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council on Tuesday that Yemen remains "the world's worst humanitarian crisis" with three-quarters of the population — over 22 million people — urgently needing humanitarian help including 8.4 million struggling to find their next meal.
Before the war, Yemen relied on imports for 90 per cent of its staple food, medicine and fuel but Mr Lowcock said delays at ports and shortages have led to sharp increases in the price of food and household necessities, forcing hundreds of thousands of destitute families to turn to humanitarian aid to survive.
Mr Faite said "humanitarian aid will not be the solution".
"Economic life is key," he said. "A country cannot run on humanitarian assistance. … What is also vitally important is that commercial items, imports, commercial life, is really allowed to resume."
_____________
Read more
UN's new Yemen envoy holds talks in Washington
Editorial: There can be no peace plan in Yemen while Houthi aggression continues
Latest Iran-made drone incident in Yemen may disrupt UN peace plan
_____________
Mr Faite said the indirect effects of the war on Yemen's crumbling infrastructure, the failure to pay health workers, teachers and civil servants, "is really impacting the life of the everyday Yemeni".
As an example of the dire situation, Mr Faite said, the ICRC is supporting six kidney dialysis centres in the north where no others are functioning, and it also has been providing insulin to Yemenis with diabetes.
For people whose lives depend on this, if "you don't get it one week, the next week you will not be around", he said.
The war has also damaged power plants and it's estimated that only 10 per cent of Yemenis have access to power in towns and cities, Mr Faite said. So generators are crucial not only for electricity but to run pumping stations for water supplies.
He said the ICRC and the UN children's agency, UNICEF, have joined forces so that when there's a breakdown "we repair the pumps, they repair the generators of the pumping stations".
"If this was not done with UNICEF providing the fuel, it's not very clear if there would be running water in the city, if there would be running water at all," Mr Faite said.
Mr Faite said all parties need to sit down to see what can be done to speed up commercial shipping, especially in the northern port of Hodeida.
Meanwhile, a Red Cross employee was killed in Yemen's southern city of Taez on Saturday.
We are in mourning for one of our colleagues who was shot dead in #Yemen this morning. We are trying to find out more about this tragic incident.
— ICRC Yemen (@ICRC_ye) April 21, 2018
Most of Taez is government-controlled, but many parts of the surrounding area remain in the hands of Houthi rebels.
The ICRC has not made public the aid worker's nationality or name.
