Local Editor
A blockade of Yemen’s key ports appeared to have been broken on Wednesday as ships arrived with food and fuel for the desperate population, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), a humanitarian aid agency, told Reuters.
A Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthi Ansarullah movement in Yemen has tightened its blockade on Yemeni ports on Nov. 6.
Although it later eased the restrictions by allowing U.N. flights and aid ships, Yemen’s dire situation has not changed much. About 8 million people are on the brink of famine with outbreaks of cholera and diphtheria.
“Today for the first time (there was) a little glimmer of hope... the first commercial goods have arrived in port, and the first ships that were let through this iron grip,” NRC chief Jan Egeland said.
Egeland said the first food and fuel had arrived in the key ports of Hodeida and Saleef, but it remained a trickle compared to what was needed, since Yemen’s population of 27 million is almost entirely reliant on imports for food, fuel and medicine.
“We need a lot of ships every single day and now we’ve had months with no ships, so I still fear the famine, I still fear starvation, I still fear epidemic disease in new areas.”
Citing information from the U.N.-led logistics cluster of aid agencies, Egeland said three vessels had berthed at Hodeida with 87,000 tons of food, and one with 38,000 of food had arrived at the anchorage area of Saleef port.
There were seven other vessels with more than 177,000 tons of food waiting to enter Hodeida anchorage area, as well as three vessels with 52,000 tons of fuel.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
