By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES
New York – About 75 protesters gathered outside the Saudi Arabian Consulate in mid-town Manhattan Thursday a few blocks away from the United Nations to protest against the US-supported, Saudi-led assault on Yemen. The protesters blocked the Consulate’s front and side entrances. Several Saudi Consulate employees angrily pushed and shoved past the protesters with the assistance of security guards. The UN is warning the Saudi-led assault is contributing to the death of a young child every 10 minutes in Yemen, a country at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. In 2015, Saudi Arabia initiated a bombing campaign against its southern neighbor Yemen in what was essentially a proxy war — the Saudis backed a government that had been forced out of the capital by the Houthis, a group allied with Iran. The war in Yemen continues — in part with bombs the Saudi-led coalition of countries bought from the U.S.
“Here we are at the scene of a crime,” one of the protesters said pointing to the Saudi Arabia Consulate. “Children are dismembered everyday by bombs that are re-fueled by U.S planes.”
“Today, every 10 minutes in Yemen, a child is dying from preventable diseases. … Today in Yemen, 1.8 million children under the age of 5 are suffering from acute malnutrition; 400,000 of these children are suffering the life-threatening form of severe acute malnutrition.”Geert Cappelaere of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
On August 7, 2018, an air strike hit a school bus—with a laser-guided bomb made by U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin—in northern Yemen, killing 51 people, 40 of them schoolchildren.Seventy-nine others were wounded, including 56 children, according to The Nation. “The War From Hell—Supported by the United States”: article in The Nation.
