News / Yemen

Saudi poisonous gas behind Yemen's cholera epidemic: Official

Sunday, 29 October 2017 3:33 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 29 October 2017 6:00 PM ]

A Yemeni woman suspected of being infected with cholera, receives treatment at a hospital in the capital Sana’a, on August 12, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

A high-ranking Yemeni military official says Saudi Arabia’s massive bombing campaign with poison gas is to blame for the humanitarian crisis and cholera epidemic in the conflict-plagued Arabian Peninsula country.

Yemen's army spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia is the main culprit for the current cholera epidemic among Yemen's vulnerable population as Saudi fighter jets continue to spread biological agents in the air, which subsequently contaminate water supply systems.

Luqman further described Yemen’s cholera outbreak as a “bio-terrorism plot” hatched by the United States, Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime of Israel.

He stressed that the outbreak of highly contagious diseases, especially cholera, is directly related to the Saudi regime’s aerial bombardment campaign.

The senior Yemeni military official went on to say that Saudi warplanes have on occasions released poisonous gases, which mix with the surrounding air, come down in the form of rain and cause groundwater pollution at last.

A Yemeni woman holds her child, who is suspected of being infected with cholera, at a makeshift hospital in the capital Sana’a, on August 12, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Luqman emphasized that children began to show symptoms of cholera ten days after Saudi jets bombarded an area in Yemen.

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.

More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign more than two and a half years ago. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.

The Saudi-led war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic across Yemen.

Yemenis gather at the site of a Saudi airstrike against a health center in the area of Abs in the northern province of Hajjah on October 7, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

According to the World Health Organization’s latest count, the cholera outbreak has killed 2,167 people since the end of April and is suspected to have infected 841,906.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has described the current level of hunger in Yemen as “unprecedented,” emphasizing that 17 million people are now food insecure in the country.

It added that 6.8 million, meaning almost one in four people, do not have enough food and rely entirely on external assistance.

A recent survey showed that almost one third of families have gaps in their diets, and hardly ever consume foods like pulses, vegetables, fruit, dairy products or meat.

More than 3 million pregnant and nursing women and children under 5 need support to prevent or cure malnutrition.

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