U.S. pressuring Saudis to ease Yemen blockade

The U.S. is ramping up pressure on Saudi Arabia to ease its blockade of Yemen amid fears that the crisis is slipping further into catastrophe and people will lose access to clean drinking water, President Donald Trump’s foreign aid chief said.

A Saudi-led coalition’s blockade of the Arab world’s poorest nation is preventing fuel used to pump water from getting to Yemen’s people, Mark Green, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said in an interview. While the Trump administration has courted Saudi Arabia’s government and continues to provide support for airstrikes over Yemen, Mr. Green’s criticism reflects increasing frustration over the course of the conflict.

“We’re in a humanitarian catastrophe here, and this is the kind of crisis that does not get better with the passage of time — it gets much much worse,” Mr. Green said in his office at USAID’s headquarters in Washington.

On Tuesday, the U.S. announced an additional $130 million in food aid to help alleviate the Yemen crisis. The United Nations World Food Program will use the money to help feed the country’s most vulnerable people, USAID said in a statement.

Mr. Green’s comments are the latest in a series of remarks by top administration officials, including Mr. Trump, demanding that Saudi Arabia ease the blockade. Saudi Arabia’s pressure is threatening to cause widespread famine, as the kingdom fights Houthi rebels believed to havebacking from Iran.

At least 14,000 people have been killed or wounded since the Saudiled offensive began in March2015.

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