Appalling situation...
Aid for Yemen Dwindles as Need Rises Amid Chaos
A police officer surveyed a crater where homes once stood near the airport in Sana, Yemen, as a Saudi-led offensive targeted suspected Houthi militia sites. Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
CAIRO — The United Nations’ human rights chief warned on Tuesday thatYemen was on the brink of collapse, as health officials in the southern port city of Aden described a medical system failing after weeks of urban warfare that had left scores dead and hospitals overflowing with bodies.
The warning from the human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, came as a Saudi-led military offensive against the Houthis, a militia group from northern Yemen that Saudi officials have accused of serving as a proxy force for Iran, threatened to burst into a broader conflict.
The Houthis, acknowledging their alliance with Iran but denying acting on its orders, have been able to extend their offensive despite intensifying airstrikes by Saudi warplanes across Yemen.
There have been few signs that the battle, which began last Wednesday, is shifting decisively in favor of any of the combatants, raising fears of a lengthy war that is expanding the destabilizing regional conflict between the Persian Gulf monarchies and Iran. With Yemen under blockade from air and sea by the Saudi-led coalition, aid agencies intensified their warnings on Tuesday about the toll on civilians and hospitals, which are running critically low on medical supplies.
http://www.startribune.com/world/298131961.html
Fleeing violence at home, dozens of Yemeni refugees arrive in Somalia
- Article by: ABDI GULED , Associated Press
- Updated: March 31, 2015 - 8:41 AM
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Dozens of Yemeni refugees fleeing the fighting and Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen have arrived in the northern parts of Somalia, local officials and the U.N. said on Tuesday.
At least 32 Yemenis arrived by sea in the northern breakaway area of Somaliland and the semiautonomous Puntland region on Saturday, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Some 12 Yemeni families arrived at Berbera port on the Gulf of Aden after traveling from Yemeni's third largest city of Taiz, where warplanes had carried out strikes targeting the Houthi rebels, Omar Abokor, the deputy manager of Somaliland's Berbera port, told reporters on Tuesday.
The arrival of the Yemenis is in stark contrast to the usual flight to Yemen of hundreds of Somalis escaping violence and poverty at home.
Yemen hosts more than 238,000 Somali refugees, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Concerns were also being raised in Somalia over a potential backlash against Somali refugees in Yemen after the Somali government expressed support for the Saudi-led air strikes against the Houthi fighters in Yemen.
Somalia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement last week that it stands by the Yemeni government in its war against the rebels whose insurgency forced Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee his country last week amid a rebel advance on the southern city of Aden.
The Somali government's decision to publicly support the assault on the Houthi rebels may endanger the lives of Somalis living in Yemen, said Hassan Abdullahi, a university lecturer in Mogadishu who studied in Yemen.
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