Yemeni parliament: UN only needs to pay ‘a quarter’ of its attention to Ukraine to Yemen

Yemen's parliament has urged the United Nations to pay “even a quarter” of the attention it has paid to Ukraine to the humanitarian crisis in war-wracked Yemen.

According to Yemen’s al-Masirah television network, the presidium of the House of Representatives in Yemen held an extraordinary session on Saturday to discuss the “catastrophic repercussions” of the Saudi seizure of Yemen-bound petroleum products.

The speaker of the House Yehia al-Ra’i said the Saudi-led coalition “seizes fuel ships in front of the whole world, nevertheless it tries to blame” the Sana’a government for the crisis of petroleum products in the impoverished country. He urged the UN to send a delegation to Yemen to observe the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the Saudi aggression and siege.

Referring to the ongoing siege imposed on the country and the seizure of Yemen-bound oil tankers, the presidium held the United States and all the member countries of the Saudi-led coalition responsible for the aggravation of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. It also stressed the importance of opening Sana’a airport and Hudaydah port "as humanitarian outlets for tens of millions of Yemenis."

The session took place as Essam al-Mutawakel, a spokesman for the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC), said on Wednesday the Arab country is experiencing the toughest crisis since the start of the Saudi aggression and siege nearly seven years ago.

Yemen experiencing toughest petroleum products crisis since Saudi aggression: YPC

A spokesman for the Yemen Petroleum Company says the country is experiencing the toughest petroleum products crisis since the Saudi-led aggression.

Yemen’s Minister of Oil and Minerals Ahmad Abdullah Dares has warned that the Saudi seizure of ships carrying petroleum products could lead to the suspension of the service sectors and cause “a humanitarian catastrophe."

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies -- including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) -- launched a brutal war against Yemen in March 2015. The war was to eliminate Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall ex-President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh. The conflict, accompanied by a tight siege, has failed to reach its goals, but has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people.

The Saudi-led coalition has also imposed an economic siege on Yemen, preventing fuel shipments from reaching the country, while looting the impoverished nation’s resources.

The UN says more than 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger. The world body also refers to the situation in Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.

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