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News > Yemen

Yemeni-Americans Launch Hunger Strike in Washington DC

  • Yemeni children walk along a road in search of food, 2021.

    Yemeni children walk along a road in search of food, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @MollyMudlark

Published 30 March 2021
Opinion

In February, UN agencies denounced that 2.3 million children under the age of five in Yemen are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition.

The grassroots group Yemeni Liberation Movement (YLM) on Monday launched a hunger strike in Washington D.C. to protest U.S. support for the Saudi-led blockade on Yemen.

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The Yemeni-Americans demand an end to any support for the blockade and call for President Joe Biden to use "all diplomatic tools to pressure Saudi Arabian dictator Mohammed bin Salman to end it,” the YLM stated.

“With the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children hanging in the balance, we have to do whatever it takes to finally bring this cruel blockade to an end,” the YLM Coordinator Iman Saleh said.

Calls for an immediate end to the blockade have become widespread after media published reports showing that the U.S. supports Saudi actions that are leading to deadly fuel and food shortages in Yemen, a country where hospitals are full of starving children.

The World Food Programme (WFP) Director David Beasley described Yemen as “hell on earth in many places” and pleaded with Saudi Arabia that the “blockade must be lifted... Otherwise, millions more will spiral into crisis.”

In February, four United Nations agencies denounced that 2.3 million children under the age of five in Yemen are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition, with 400,000 expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition that will lead to death. A nearly 25 percent increase since the escalation of the conflict in 2015.

“Calls by humanitarian organizations for an end to the blockade were ignored by the Trump Administration but we are hopeful that President Biden will listen,” the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation President Aisha Jumaan said.

“We cannot wait for a political agreement that may take months or years to allow basic necessities to reach millions of innocent Yemeni families. I am so grateful that these activists are making this sacrifice to draw attention to this unfathomable and avoidable tragedy,” he added.

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