The restrictions have been compounded by a collapse in donor funding and a new fuel crisis, triggered by disagreements over how to regulate taxation of imported fuel, which hospitals and water pumps depend on. The Houthis have tried to use some of the shipments as bargaining chips in negotiations relating to the lifting of other aid obstacles and agreed to release 118 of the containers in late August or early September. Since May, the Houthis have blocked 262 containers in Hodeida port belonging to the World Health Organization as well as a large shipment of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the Covid-19 response. As of late July, the Houthis had recorded only a few cases of Covid-19 and stopped all social distancing measures after saying the virus no longer posed a threat.Įfforts to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and respond to other urgent health needs in Yemen have been severely hampered by onerous restrictions and obstacles that the Houthi and other authorities have imposed on international aid agencies and humanitarian organizations. In the country’s north, the political movement and armed group known as the Houthis have stigmatized being infected by the virus and threatened medical workers, leaving sick people afraid to seek treatment and cemetery workers burying the dead in secret. Scores of healthcare workers, underpaid or not paid at all and with little or no access to PPE, have left their posts, forcing even more health centers to close. The response to Covid-19 in Yemen has been hampered by limited testing, a lack of healthcare centers, and severe shortages of medical supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE). As of August 30, the Yemeni government had confirmed only 1,950 cases and 564 Covid-19-related deaths, but the UN has warned that the actual number of cases and deaths is much higher, and that the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 is “likely to spread faster, more widely and with deadlier consequences than almost anywhere else.” Now Yemenis, many already in a weakened state of health, face the deadly Covid-19 pandemic. In August 2020, the UN warned the country was again on the brink of full-scale famine. Cholera and other disease outbreaks are common, malnutrition is widespread, water is scarce, and the healthcare system is crumbling, with only half of the country’s 5,000 or so health facilities fully operational and with massive medical supply and staff shortages. With about 24 million of Yemen’s 30 million people in need of some form of assistance, the United Nations calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Thousands of civilians have been killed or injured, and at least 3.6 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to a conflict that involves at least six regional and international powers. A decade of economic and political crisis and more than five years of war have ravaged the country. Civilians in Yemen are facing one hardship after another.
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