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Sana’a (AM) – Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is the most important story in the world but because its victims are poor and practically invisible to the rest of the world, their stories are mostly unheard and then ignored even when they are told.

For that reason, we are always trying to write more reports about Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, and draw more attention to the plight of Yemen’s people because of the harrowing photos of starving children included in it. Unfortunately, the economic crisis is of such a magnitude and the need for relief is so urgent that much more will be required.

Ending US-Saudi Aggression and Siege, that has destroyed Yemen and starved people, is a necessary step in preventing one of the largest modern famines from claiming the lives of millions of people.

It’s not just bombs, bullets, and artillery shells that threaten Yemen’s children. Economic strangulation is used by the US-Saudi-led coalition as a weapon of war targeting jobs, infrastructure, food markets, and the provision of basic services.

Nobody is there to count the bodies of the victims.

But for every child buried beneath the rubble of a building hit by a “smart bomb,” are dozens of children threatened by the starvation that has accompanied the economic assault. The food system is collapsing, pushing the country to the brink of famine. Over 400,000 children are at imminent risk of starvation.

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Economic warfare takes other forms, too. In a recent paper, Martha Mundy, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, analyzed coalition airstrikes in Yemen finding that their attacks on bridges, factories, fishing boats, and even fields suggested that they aimed to destroy food production and distribution in Yemen.

Relocating the central bank and politicizing the last national institution would have disastrous effects on the civilian population and those warnings have unfortunately been proven correct.

The non-payment of salaries has been a guaranteed way to impoverish these employees and their families. Yemenis are faced with economic collapse and rising prices due to shortages and the falling currency. The rapid deterioration of the currency in recent months has exacerbated the crisis severely. The main causes of this catastrophe can all be traced back to the deliberate policies of the Saudi coalition and, as such, the U.S. shares responsibility on account of our government’s unconditional support for the coalition.

About four years of US-Saudi Aggression and Siege on Yemen, there is no longer any reasonable argument for believing that what the Saudis are doing will work. Meanwhile, the intelligence support, logistics assistance and specific types of weaponry that the US provides Saudi Arabia have made it complicit in all the airstrikes gone wrong and the ensuing carnage among civilians.

One tempting option would be to stop U.S. arms sales and support, a measure that could impose pain on Riyadh without disrupting America’s de facto security guarantee or the world’s unquenchable thirst for Saudi hydrocarbons. Yet the US and President Trump resists this step, arguing that American jobs are on the line.

This post originally ran on Almasirah and was republished here with permission.