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Washington supports War in Yemen despite promise to end it

Yemeni Child Cancer Patients Suffer needless lack of medicine

One of Joe Biden's promises during his presidential campaign was to immediately move to end all support for the Saudi led coalition's war in Yemen.

In February 2021 Biden stood at a podium at the State Department and proclaimed that the war in Yemen must end.

Biden underlined the humanitarian crisis as the key reason the United States withdrew support.

This war has to end and to underscore our commitment; we're ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales.

US President, Joe Biden

An investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that the United States is training the Saudi led coalition with US troops on the ground in Yemen. Biden confirmed that the United States has troops in Yemen in a letter to Congress in June last year. Simply put, he lied to the world when, in 2021, he claimed that the United States was withdrawing US troops from the war in Yemen.

On the contrary, the United States is making billions of dollars from the war in Yemen, while close to 200,000 have been killed from direct violence.

According to data acquired from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, between 2015 and 2021, the United States sent $54.2 billion in weapons and services to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

In addition, the Department of Defense provided $644 million for military training to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, almost entirely through the foreign military sales program.

The DOD uses acquisition and cross servicing agreements to build nations for logistical support and items ranging from flying hours, fuel and bombs.

Saudi Arabia has paid the United States $157 million in flying hours, with the UAE having paid $104 million for flying hours since the Saudi led intervention began in Yemen in 2015.

The United States billed Saudi Arabia and the UAE for $319 million in acquisition and cross servicing agreements for logistical support. Also, the United States sent $18.6 billion in missiles, $6.2 billion in aircraft, $3.3 billion in ships, and, $2.8 billion in military training, to attack one of the poorest nations in the world.

The United States is well aware that the coalition is not fighting an advanced military in Yemen. Billions of dollars have been spent destroying the country, killing hundreds of thousands of people.

The UN Security Council approved a resolution to blockade Yemen, which has been in effect since 2015, the object being to prevent arms from flooding the conflict zone, however, the embargo has only succeeded in starving the Yemenis and inducing famine.

During a February 9 phone call in 2022 with the King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, President Joe Biden assured King Salman that the United States would continue to support the war in Yemen.

The phone call came just one year after Biden lied to the world and announced that the US was withdrawing its support for the war in Yemen.

The Defense Security Cooperation agency's defense Institute of International Legal Studies, conducted training at the Saudi War College which focused on the law of armed conflict, including laws related to air to ground targeting in May 2017, April 2018, June 2019 and May 2020.

The DOD claims they are not responsible for civilian deaths because they provided the Saudis with training to avoid civilian casualties.

According to the Yemen data project over 23,000 Saudi led coalition airstrikes have been logged since March 2015 which have led to thousands of civilian casualties.

A Yemeni human rights organization has warned that the Saudi led war in Yemen, as well as the crippling siege in the impoverished Arab country, could result in the death of thousands of children suffering from cancer.

The Entesaf Organization for Women's and Children's Rights, in a statement on the occasion of World Cancer Day, declared that more than 3000 Yemeni children, who have developed cancer as a result of Saudi aggression and the tight sea, land, and, air, blockade imposed upon the country, are now at significant risk of death.

Entesaf criticized international organizations and other relevant bodies for neglecting Yemeni cancer patients over the past years revealing that the incidence of Leukemia is increasing among Yemeni children.

The number of children suffering from blood cancer has soared from 300 to 700 in the capital Sanaa due to the use of internationally banned weapons, supplied by the United States and the United Kingdom, used by Saudi led coalition in Yemen.

Approximately one thousand children are also believed to have contracted leukemia in other Yemeni regions for the same reasons. The rights organization pointed to the dire shortage of medicine needed for the treatment of patients. diagnosed with cancer because of the Saudi led military onslaught and siege, stating that many children lose their lives as a result.

The Human Rights Organization noted that the economic hardship caused by the ongoing military aggression and the blockade have prevented child cancer patients from seeking treatment abroad and called for the opening of Sanaa International Airport for humanitarian purposes.

It holds Saudi Arabia and its allies fully responsible for all the crimes and violations being perpetrated against the Yemeni nation, especially children, urging the international community to bear the legal and humanitarian responsibility for the violations against innocent civilians.

Saudi Arabia in collaboration with its Arab allies, and with arms and logistics support from the US and other Western States, launched a devastating war in Yemen in March 2015.

The objective was to crush the popular Ansarullah Resistance Movement, which has been running the state in the absence of a functional government in Yemen, and to reinstall the Riyadh friendly regime of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.

However, the Saudi led coalition has failed to achieve any of its objectives, leaving hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead and spawning the world's worst humanitarian crisis.


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