Emergency aid supplies arrive at Hodeidah port in Yemen
Supplies began arriving at Yemen’s ports yesterday, two weeks after a Houthi missile launched at Riyadh sparked tough restrictions on goods entering the country.
A ship carrying 5,500 tonnes of flour docked in Hodeidah on the Red Sea coast – the first such shipment since the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iranbacked rebels in Yemen closed air, land and sea access to the country on November 6.
Saudi Arabia said it closed the ports to stop the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran, including missile warheads.
The coalition also allowed a flight carrying aid workers to land in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Saturday.
Hodeidah and Sanaa are controlled by the rebels. The coalition is fighting in support of Yemeni troops loyal to the internationally recognised government of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi.
It said it had decided to allow aid through the ports after “a comprehensive review of the inspection and verification procedures used to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 2216”.
The resolution prohibits provision of weapons and military equipment to the Houthi militia and their supporters.
Last week the coalition eased some restrictions on ports controlled by the Yemeni government, but aid agencies had called for more to be done to allow a free flow of aid into the country.
They said the blockade had worsened the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where the war has left an estimated seven million people facing famine and killed more than 10,000.
The coalition gave clearance for UN flights in and out of Sanaa from Amman on Saturday, allowing the regular rotation of aid workers.
The charity Save the Children said about 20,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 were becoming severely malnourished every month, “an average of 27 children every hour”.
Shortly after access was restricted, the leaders of the World Health Organisation, the UN children’s agency and the World Food Programme issued a joint appeal for further easing of restrictions at ports.
Save the Children said about 130 children or more were dying every day in Yemen from extreme hunger and disease, with more than 50,000 believed to have died this year.
The UN child agency on Sunday said it had flown 1.9 million doses of vaccines to Yemen.
Regional Unicef director Geert Cappelaere described Saturday’s shipment as a “very small step” at a time of immense need and warned it should not be a one-off.
More than 11 million children in Yemen are in acute need of aid, and it is estimated that every 10 minutes a child in Yemen dies of a preventable disease, Mr Cappelaere said.
New alarms were raised by an outbreak of diphtheria, with suspected cases reported in five governorates, he said. Cholera and acute diarrhoea spread rapidly in recent months, with close to a million suspected cases reported.
“The war in Yemen is sadly a war on children,” Mr Cappelaere said. “Yemen is facing the worst humanitarian crisis I have seen in my life.”
He said the 1.9 million doses are meant to vaccinate 600,000 children against diphtheria, meningitis, whooping cough, pneumonia and tuberculosis.
Almost 180 cases of diphtheria have been reported in the past two months.
Mr Cappelaere appealed for a swift end to the war.