Trump calls on Saudi Arabia to allow food, other aid to reach Yemen

President Trump on Wednesday called on Saudi Arabia to allow food, fuel, water and medicine to reach the people of Yemen, in a statement that reflected the growing alarm of relief agencies and amounted to an unusually harsh public scolding one of his administration’s closest allies.

The Saudis have imposed intermittent blockades on Yemen, their southern neighbor, including one that was partially lifted last week. Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen’s civil war has decimated the country’s economy and infrastructure, and left millions at risk of starvation and reliant on humanitarian aid. The United States sells weaponry and provides intelligence to the Saudis and their coalition partners.

Since the coalition intervention began, Yemen has increasingly become a proxy battle between Saudi Arabia and archrival Iran, which supports the largely Shiite leadership of a group known as the Houthis, who now control much of the country’s north and west.

Trump’s statement came after the second consecutive night of Saudi airstrikes in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, as the Saudi-led coalition tried to prevent the Houthis from consolidating power over the city. On Monday, rebel fighters killed Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was Yemen’s president from 1978 to 2012. Saleh’s death occurred days after he publicly broke off his wartime alliance with the Houthis while indicating he was open to negotiations with the Saudi-led coalition.

[Saleh has died amid escalating fighting, aides and rebels say]

Saleh’s death has added to growing concern that Yemen’s war is entering a new and more destructive phase. The Saudi-led coalition and allied forces have stated their intention to recapture Sanaa from the Houthis, raising the possibility of fierce urban warfare in Yemen’s most populous city, a place already suffering from severe shortages of electricity and essential goods as a result of the conflict.

Street skirmishes spread across Sanaa amid news of Saleh’s death, and the Red Cross said that 234 people had been killed and nearly 500 injured since Monday. More are thought to have died in the ground fighting than from the airstrikes, but continuing chaos in Sanaa has made an exact accounting impossible.

Street fighting has since subsided and residents have taken the opportunity to restock on basic supplies. Aid workers and locals described the two-day pounding of the city as among the most intense since the Saudi-led coalition became involved in Yemen’s civil war nearly three years ago.

The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. Food, medicine and fuel are scarce and too expensive for most to afford. Drinking water is hard to come by. More than 10,000 people have been killed, 2 million displaced and 7 million are totally reliant on humanitarian aid. Without it, international observers say a famine would immediately break out.

[In Yemen’s war, trapped families ask: Which child should we save?]

This week’s fighting resulted in the disruption of emergency services in Sanaa.

“Hospitals in Sanaa use fuel for generators that are their only source of electricity,” said Iolanda Jacquemet, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross. “Any interruption because of fighting means hospitals essentially stop functioning.”

Saleh was ousted in 2012 during the Arab Spring, and his death recalled images of a similar fate met by Moammar Gaddafi in Libya during the uprising there. But Saleh survived much longer. After losing power, he stayed in Yemen, retained loyal army commanders and forged an alliance with his former enemies, the Houthis, against the current internationally recognized president of Yemen, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Together, they took over Sanaa in 2014, before expanding control to most of the north and west of the country, provoking Saudi intervention. This year, some commanders loyal to Saleh began taking orders from the Houthis, which may have pushed Saleh toward his dramatic and fateful decision to switch sides in the conflict. Saleh’s son Salah said on Facebook on Tuesday that he would not accept condolences for his father’s death until “after avenging the blood.”

Kareem Fahim in Riyadh and Ali al-Mujahed in Sanaa contributed to this report.

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