MSF leaving Yemen due to world silence on Saudi raids: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Omar Nashabe, a political analyst, about Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announcing that it is evacuating its staff from six hospitals in northern Yemen, saying it cannot get assurances that its hospitals will not be bombed again by Saudi warplanes.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

PressTV: What do you make of this decision by Doctors Without Borders to pull out of Yemen where it has said that it does not take this decision very lightly?

Nashabe: Yes it does not take this decision lightly and it does not take the decision to work in Yemeni hospitals lightly. What I mean is that since Medecins Sans Frontiere has been working in Yemeni hospitals, that means that these Yemeni hospitals are actually hospitals and they are not used for any military purpose. Hence, the targeting of these hospitals is a crime against humanity and a crime in violation of Geneva Conventions and it is not the first time.

So when it is recurrent, any organization such as the Medecins Sans Frontiere or Medecins du Monde or any other organization that works in hospitals to supply these hospitals with doctors and some actual medical equipment to help these people who are living in devastation since the Saudi bombing has started so many months ago and the destruction is devastating, and they are trying to help and when they are targeted and when these hospitals are targeted in violation of international law and no one does anything about it, the United Nations is not doing anything about it, nothing practical, nothing direct, the international community is not doing anything about it, these doctors find themselves in a situation where they have no other choice but to leave and evacuate and they take it very seriously because they do not want to withdraw, they want to stay there for humanitarian purposes and help these people but the conditions are dangerous and they are not only dangerous for the local Yemeni people and the wounded and sick in the hospital but they are also dangerous for the national staff and international doctors who are trying to help. 

PressTV: Can you clarify one thing for us, this decision on part of Doctors Without Borders to pull out of Yemen, is this an indication that the organization is admitting that Saudi Arabia is deliberately targeting hospitals in Yemen or is this a strategic mistake on the part of Saudi Arabia?

Nashabe: Well as is the case with the American bombing in Iraq in the past, well today the Saudis have learned the lesson from the Americans apparently and they use the term “collateral damage” and they say this was a mistake and they did not actually target the hospital. Well with the advanced equipment that they have and the advanced military equipment and the radar system and the advanced target designation radars and all these equipment that are there with the Saudi army, I think it is difficult for them to say that it was a mistake.

They targeted this hospital and they bombed it and they are running out of targets because they have been bombing Yemen since such a long time and therefore they do not have any military targets anymore and therefore they are picking targets here and there for civilian infrastructure and that has been going on for a while now.

And this is a clear devastating violation of international law and international human rights law. This is a crime of war. Targeting hospitals and ambulances and food supplies and civilian infrastructure is an international crime but apparently there is impunity and there is no one to hold Saudi Arabia accountable and this is a big shock to the world.

PressTV: Well speaking of accountability, Saudi Arabia has set up a meeting with MSF representatives and tried to assure them that they are setting up an independent inquiry into these incidents that get reported from the Yemen war. What do you make of that?

Nashabe: Well this is, I think, a diplomatic move in order to calm things down but I think the actual damage has been done and there is blood and as we say in Arabic, ‘blood cannot be turned into water’. There is blood, they killed people, they should be held accountable, mistake or no mistake, inquiry or no inquiry. These images that we are seeing are really very painful and devastating. These are civilian locations, these are civilians that have been slaughtered, they have no capacity to defend themselves, they have been targeted in a very cowardly way.

Bombing hospital is a cowardly act and this is what the Saudis have been doing in Yemen and this is not the first time. If it was the first time, it would not even be perhaps very important news. If it was the first time, perhaps there was a mistake, perhaps there was something, perhaps they were using the hospital as a military location to launch rockets or perhaps there were weapons inside the hospital. Well here are the images, there were no weapons, the hospital was not used as a military base and the fact that Medecins Sans Frontiere and other international doctors were there, they would not be there if this location was not a hospital.

So it is a hospital and we can see the casualties on the screen. Saudi Arabia must be held accountable by the international community and must be held accountable by some people in the United States who claim that they have been giving weapons to the Saudis in order to defend themselves. This is not an act of self-defense. This is an aggressive act that violates international law and they should be held accountable.

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