EU says partial removal of Saudi blockade not enough to help Yemenis

The European Union has said that Saudi Arabia’s slight easing of its blockade on Yemen is not enough to stop the country from plunging into famine, urging further measures to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

“The EU urges the coalition to ensure the immediate resumption of the UN’s flights and activities in the ports of Hudaydah and Saleef and the opening of land borders for humanitarian relief and basic commercial commodities,” said EU’s commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, Christos Stylianides, on Saturday.

“The delivery of life-saving supplies is critical for the Yemeni population and must be facilitated by all parties to the conflict,” he added.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced that it was shutting down Yemen’s air, sea, and land borders, after Yemeni fighters targeted an international airport near the Saudi capital.
UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council on Wednesday that unless the blockade is lifted, Yemen will face “the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims.”

Facing international outcry, the Saudi-led coalition reopened the port of Aden on Wednesday and opened the land crossing at Wadea on the Saudi-Yemen border.

On Friday,  a United Nations official said the re-opening of the port city of Aden and a land border crossing for dispatching humanitarian aid to Yemen is not enough.

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.