New Cholera Outbreak Spreading Fast in Yemen’s Hudaydah

The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF,  has warned that a fresh cholera outbreak is spreading quickly in Yemen’s vital seaport of Hudaydah, amid ongoing attacks by the Saudi-led coalition against the besieged provincial capital., according to Press TV.

“Over a year after cholera broke out in Yemen, killing more than 2,000 people, the disease is back and spreading fast in … Hudaydah,” said the UN agency in a report on Monday, adding that port city has been “a target of continued airstrikes” by the so-called coalition in an attempt “to control of the city.”

Cholera infection first became epidemic in Yemen in October 2016 and spread until December the same year, when it dwindled. The second outbreak began in the Arabian Peninsula country in April last year.

 Backed by Saudi-led airstrikes, Emirati forces and militants loyal to Yemen’s former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, launched the Hudaydah offensive on June 13 despite international warnings that it would compound the impoverished nation’s humanitarian crisis.

Over 70 percent of all humanitarian aid, and food imports pass through the docks of Hudaydah, which was one of the worst-hit cities in Yemen’s cholera outbreak last year – the worst in the world at its height. The Saudi-led coalition’s current blockade on the city has triggered an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the impoverished country. 

The Saudi-led coalition, which has been waging a war against Yemen since early 2015, claims that the members of the Houthi Ansarullah movement are using Hudaydah for weapons delivery, an allegation rejected by the fighters.

Saudi Arabia and some of its allies launched a brutal war, code-named Operation Decisive Storm, against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Hadi, an ally of Riyadh, and crush the Houthi movement, which is a significant aid to the Yemeni army in defending the country against the invading forces. It has also been running state affairs in the absence of an effective administration during the past three years.

The imposed war initially consisted of a bombing campaign but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces into Yemen.

H.M