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War makes its presence felt on Yemen

The war on Yemen and the internal clashes among factions have caused the country to descend into chaos and slammed the brakes on people’s most primary needs.

People display fragment of shells they collected from their house amid  clashes between members of the anti-Houthi Popular Resistance Committees and Houthi fighters in Yemen's southwestern city of Taiz, June 15, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer - RTX1GJW9
People display fragments of shells they collected from their houses amid clashes between members of the anti-Houthi Popular Resistance Committees and Houthi fighters in Yemen's southwestern city of Taiz, June 15, 2015. — REUTERS

Two destructive wars have been raging in Yemen since March 26: an internal one led by the Houthis, with the backing of army troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, against an armed popular resistance movement that backs the legitimacy of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, and an external war against the Houthis waged by a coalition of 10 Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia. As those wars endure, so does the suffering of Yemenis, who have paid a horrific material and humanitarian cost with the aggressors relentlessly violating their security, safety and freedom.

The war, the escalation of violence between the factions — the Houthi-Saleh alliance on the one hand, and the popular resistance on the other — and coalition airstrikes have caused the deaths of thousands of Yemenis, now easy targets for Houthi militias and Saleh loyalists who targeted residential neighborhoods and hospitals in cities that oppose them, such as AdenTaizal-Dalea and Lahij. This is not to mention the victims of Houthi anti-aircraft salvos that cause indiscriminate loss of life as they fall on residential areas, exacerbated by repeated targeting errors on the part of the Saudi air force, leading to the bombing of houses, refugees camps and villages.

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