A cholera outbreak in Yemen is spreading rampantly, and posing an additional danger to the children, according to the UN. Similarly, the World Health Organisation (WHO) is saying, as reported by the Yemeni Ministry of Health, that there have been eight cases of cholera, most of whom are children, registered within a single Yemeni district in the capital of Sanaa. It indicates to the scarcity of water suitable for drinking which has led to the situation being aggravated. Julien Harneis, UNICEF representative in Yemen, said, “This outbreak adds to the misery of millions of children in Yemen…” and added, “Children are at a particularly high risk if the current cholera outbreak is not urgently contained…” (UNICEF)
The healthcare system in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, is collapsing with the continuation of the armed conflict. Meanwhile, the children are living through a real humanitarian by the countries of the Arab coalition. Their targeting has become systematic aiming to destroy the health infrastructure represented in hospitals, health centres, clinics, emergency health units, medicine storage and health offices. From another aspect, the Houthi militias are working to narrow the siege in different districts and are confiscating medical supplies according to what Human Right Watch has reported.
Yemen’s children are being killed in these armed conflicts; and what further aggravates the humanitarian disaster making it a war crime of the highest degree is the increase of the suffering and deaths through preventing food and medicine from reaching the hospitals and their direct (military) targeting.
The human rights and humanitarian organisations appeal to the UN and international community to move urgently in respect to Yemen. At the same time, the international law allows the “siege”, and the attacks of the Arab coalition are not condemned as they are considered to be for the sake of supporting “the legitimate government” in Yemen. For how long will the international community and the UN be wagered upon to come to save the children of Yemen at a time where the stances of their responsibility is to not go beyond a call for “self-restraint” and expressing their worry about what is happening or an implicit call for western military intervention within the region in the name of protecting human rights?!
The three issues: “War, starvation and disease” are annihilating the children of Yemen. Cholera may well be the most threatening of epidemics for children if immediate treatment is not available in the form of medicine, food and water. It is a tragedy beyond words, and the signs of starvation and the spread of diseases warn of a horrendous humanitarian disaster. Until when and to what extent will this suffering continue?! The children of Yemen are a part of the children of the Islamic Ummah thus who do we depend upon from this Ummah to save them and to put an end to the disaster??!
O people of power and preventative protection in the Muslim lands, O Muslim armies, O pilots of Saudi, UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Morocco and Pakistan, O those who are leading the Decisive Storm! Are you content to point your weapons, missiles and tanks towards the chests of the Muslims whilst you have refused to fight their enemies with them? Have you been able to unite and come together to serve malicious colonialist plans whilst you have been incapable of coming together to repel it, expel it and avenge those of our Ummah who have been made to taste woes and sufferings??!
The armies of Egypt were brazen enough to bomb Libya and the Sinai under the pretext of fighting “terrorism” whilst Jordan, the UAE, Morocco and others are bombing Syria and Iraq alongside US aircraft. The same applies to the Pakistan army in respect to its bombing of the tribal region and so on… Has the time not come for you to provide support to your Ummah against its real and true enemies and take the stance of one single man to provide support to it and rise up against the wretched rulers, the agents of colonialism?!
Verily, the children of Yemen are an Amaanah (trust) upon your necks and their protection falls under protecting your own children. So do not neglect this great obligation and do not disappoint and betray them. Their protection will not happen except by the establishment of the real state that will foster and care for them fearing Allah regarding their wellbeing. It is the Islamic state that will be a protective fortress, a shield and guard for all Muslims. So tread the path towards it and establish it so that you can attain the good of both the life of this world and the Hereafter.
Women’s Section in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
Monday, 16th Muharram 1438 AH
17/10/2016 CE
Issue No: 1438 AH / 006