Yemeni Council Raps Int’l Silence on Saudi-Led Coalition’s Atrocities

According to Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network, the council said in a statement on Friday that “those who are silent on the massacres” should “swallow their tongues when the screams of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab of Emirates (UAE) and their users rise,” in an apparent reference to the United States and the Israeli regime.

According to the statement, the targeting of telecommunication networks means the coalition aims to “commit more crimes away from the media.” Referring to the coalition members as “dirty tools of the Zionists and the Americans,” the council stated, “Despite your crimes, you will fail as before.” The statement emphasized that the Yemeni army and allied fighters from popular committees will “respond forcefully to all aggressors.”

Also on Friday, crowds of Yemenis took to the streets of the capital Sana’a and other cities to condemn coalition bombardment of Sa’ada and Hudaydah. Seventy people were killed and nearly 140 others injured in one attack that targeted a detention center in Sa’ada earlier in the day. And on Thursday, the telecommunications building in Hudaydah was hit.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies – including the UAE – launched a brutal war on Yemen in March 2015. The war was launched to eliminate Yemen’s Ansarullah movement and reinstall former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh. But the campaign, accompanied by a tight siege, has failed to reach its goals, although it has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people.

The UN refers to the situation in Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.