Red Cross Warns About Dire Situation For Civilians In Yemen

(The Real Agenda) The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer, visited South Yemen. According to him, his visit highlighted the suffering of Yemeni civilians and the difficulties of humanitarian organizations to provide assistance.

Maurer visited hospitals in Aden and patients who have been injured by torture and landmines, and reported through its official account of Twitter about the “terrible suffering” of these people.

He also said through the social network that the medical staff of these hospitals work tirelessly to treat the wounded, in the town that was hard hit by fighting between government forces and rebels since March.

Maurer arrived in Aden from the capital Sanaa, on board a plane on which also traveled seven fighters from the Popular Southern Resistance, a group that fights for President Abdo Rabu Mansur Hadi, currently in exile in Saudi Arabia.

ICRC spokesman in Sanaa, Adnan Hizam, said that the seven militants were released by the Shiite rebel movement as part of a prisoner exchange supervised by the Red Cross.

Before flying to Aden, Maurer told reporters in Sanaa that the situation in Yemen is “catastrophic” and requires more work by the Red Cross, but this work is limited by a “volatile situation” .

“The work of the ICRC and other organizations is not nearly enough to address the humanitarian dimensions of the problem,” he said.

He also called on the international community to help “stabilize” the situation that is causing so much suffering to the Yemeni people.

At the same time, he called on donor countries to respond consistently to humanitarian needs through donations to organizations working on the ground.

“If we do not reach stability of the Yemeni society, the spiral of violence that we have seen in recent weeks will continue and the peace process will be more difficult,” he said.

The ICRC representative visited Sana in the past two days, which is in the hands of houthis and that has also been greatly affected by the violence and the bombing of the Arab coalition that acts against the rebels since late March.

Since the beginning of the military operation, the Red Cross estimates that 3,800 people have died in Yemen, 19,000 have been injured and 1.2 million have been displaced by war.

Luis R. Miranda is an award-winning journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief at The Real Agenda. His career spans over 18 years and almost every form of news media. His articles include subjects such as environmentalism, Agenda 21, climate change, geopolitics, globalisation, health, vaccines, food safety, corporate control of governments, immigration and banking cartels, among others. Luis has worked as a news reporter, on-air personality for Live and Live-to-tape news programs. He has also worked as a script writer, producer and co-producer on broadcast news. Read more about Luis.