Monday, December 23, 2019

The Houthis are Fine With a Humanitarian Crisis

There is a new agreement on getting humanitarian aid through the Yemen port of Hodeida (Hodeidah):

Yemen's warring parties agreed Thursday to create humanitarian corridors in the key port city of Hodeida, which remains the main entry point for food and aid in a country witnessing the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The agreement follows two days of U.N.-mediated talks between the Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition.

This won't work. The Houthi rely on stealing aid and smuggling arms in the aid shipments. And the Houthi know the world blames the Saudis for any humanitarian crisis that develops because of any limits on aid shipments the Saudi coalition imposes to halt stealing and smuggling.

Or have you forgotten that deals to open the port have been made since November 2018 yet somehow don't get implemented?

The Yemen humanitarian crisis would be ended more effectively if we helped the Saudi coalition actually defeat the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

UPDATE: Tell me this isn't shocking:

A dozen humanitarian organizations in war-torn southern Yemen suspended their operations following a string of targeted attacks, the United Nations said, while the country's rebel-led health ministry announced on Tuesday that severe outbreaks of swine flu and dengue fever have killed close to 200 people since October.

The suspension of aid work came after unknown assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at three aid organizations in the southwestern province of Dhale over the weekend, according to the U.N. Humanitarian Office in Yemen, wounding a security guard and damaging several office buildings.

Perhaps jihadis did this. But the Houthis are fine with the disruption. So don't rule them out.