Yemen and child deaths: Soldiers, expired cancer drugs, and NATO powers

Yemen and child deaths: Soldiers, expired cancer drugs, and NATO powers

Kanako Mita and Lee Jay Walker

Modern Tokyo Times

The war in Yemen is a place where the coldness of Western democracy is never-ending. America, France, and the United Kingdom obtain huge profits concerning military arms procured by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other members of the alliance that is at war in Yemen.

Last year, James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said, “A child dies in Yemen of something that is preventable every 10 minutes. And that is certainly a number that unfortunately has not changed in the last couple of years…Yemen is the most difficult place in the world to be a child. Incredulously, it is getting worse.”

Adults and children are dying yearly from war and the crumbling healthcare system. This concerns the shortages of medicine, limited professional doctors and nurses, and the destroyed medical infrastructure that was already weak before the war broke out.

Reports state that children have died from cancer treatment because the doses had already expired. The known cases are probably the tip of a grim iceberg. Therefore, one can only imagine the pain and suffering that these children went through before passing away from this cold earth.

Voice of America reports, “At least 10 child leukemia patients in Yemen have died, and dozens more were left seriously ill, after being administered expired doses of a cancer treatment in the rebel-held capital, medical officials and workers said Friday.”

The Human Rights Council (HRC) condemned all parties to this brutal conflict. This organization reported its findings, it said,  “Examples include humanitarian restrictions and obstacles to access to food and healthcare; arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, gender-based violence, including sexual violence; torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; denial of fair trial rights; violations of fundamental freedoms; persecution and violations against journalists, human rights defenders, minorities, migrants and internally displaced persons; and violations of children’s rights.”

Child soldiers are another grim reality in Yemen. The Associated Press reports, “U.N. experts said in a new report that nearly 2,000 children recruited by Yemen’s Houthi rebels died on the battlefield between January 2020 and May 2021, and the Iranian-backed rebels continue to hold camps and courses encouraging youngsters to fight.”

The former administration of President Barack Obama spread death to Libya, Syria, Yemen, and other nations. Thus when the Yemen crisis began the administration of Obama was quick to make huge profits. Other nations, including France and the United Kingdom, also welcomed rich pickings – all three nations are NATO powers.

Reuters reports, “U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, other military equipment and training, the most of any U.S. administration in the 71-year U.S.-Saudi alliance, a report seen by Reuters has found.”

The BBC says, “The UN estimated that by the end of 2021, the conflict in Yemen would have caused over 377,000 deaths, with 60% of them the result of hunger, lack of healthcare and unsafe water.”

Unlike the crisis in Ukraine and the pro-Russian region of the Donbass (Donbas), you have no sanctions on Gulf powers for supporting the war in Yemen. Nor sanctions against the main suppliers of military arms (NATO powers of America, France, and the United Kingdom). Therefore, the European Union and Japan are silent about the real culprits of the brutal conflict in Yemen that is witnessing untold numbers of deaths: – the majority of deaths were preventable (hunger and malnutrition, cholera, lack of safe water, limited medication, and the devastated healthcare system).

Pity the children and adults of Yemen. The poor can’t afford to care if Yemen factions will kill them – or outside nations that meddle directly or by stealth (America, France, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and others).

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