The Reality of the United Nations and How Money Can Influence Their Decisions

YemenExtra

During the World Humanitarian Day, “Lisa Grande,” the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, warned of a humanitarian crisis in the coming weeks and a lack of foodstuffs in Yemen. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen confirmed that thousands of children may die due to malnutrition and rampant diseases in many Yemeni regions and cities. The statements of the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen came as the United Nations recently removed the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the coalition of aggression from the blacklist of child rights violators. The Secretary-General of the United Nations recently claimed in his annual report, that was given to the Security Council, that the name of the Saudi aggression coalition would be removed from the blacklist after a significant reduction in deaths and injuries as a result of airstrikes carried out by Saudi and Emirati fighter jets on residential neighborhoods in Yemen.

The Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen

Lisa Grandi, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, warned last Wednesday that a lack of funding is causing the closure or curtailment of the UN’s programs in a country plagued by war, threatening millions of people with death. “Half of the main UN programs in Yemen have been affected by the lack of funding,” Grande said in a statement, adding, “Twelve of the 38 major UN programs have already been closed or curtailed, while 20 others are facing the same fate.

“We have no choice,” she added. We have a moral obligation to warn the world that millions of Yemenis will suffer and may die because we do not have the funding we need to continue.”

According to the UN official, since the end of 2018, relief agencies have worked to manage one of the fastest and largest expansion operations provided in recent history, reaching an unprecedented number of 14 million people per month. However, the lack of funding has caused the food rations to be cut in half for more than 8 million people in northern Yemen. Health services have been cut or curtailed, where salaries and benefits for about 10,000 people working on the front lines in those services have been stopped, as well as supplies needed to treat the sick and injured.

“50 percent of water and sanitation services will be cut off, medicines and essential supplies will stop at 189 hospitals, and it is likely that “thousands of children suffering from malnutrition and disease will die,” the UN official pointed out if funding is not available “urgently” in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen expressed, for his part, that Yemen is one of five regions in the world where the outbreak of the Coronavirus will cause an emergency and dangerous situation, and the inability to control the virus would result in serious harm to the population.

About 80 percent of the Yemeni population is said to be in need of humanitarian aid, including 1.2 million children. Thousands of Yemeni children suffer from malnutrition, 36,000 of them are under one year, as well as 27 million people in Yemen who do not have adequate food. In addition, 4.3 million have fled their homes due to this futile war and the unjust blockade imposed by the Saudi aggression (coalition) on Yemen.

The latest estimates indicate that the death toll in Yemen has reached 200,000, and the number of people who have died due to starvation, famine and disease has reached about 85,000 people in the country, and despite all of these crises, Saudi Arabia and countries participating in its coalition continue to attack many Yemeni regions and cities and continue to bomb civilian infrastructure In the country. The Saudi invading forces have also detained ships loaded with fuel and foodstuffs and refused to release them.

United Nations political positions contrasting with the humanitarian crisis in Yemen

The United Nations and its various departments have repeatedly warned of the grave ordeal in which the children of Yemen are living and called for increased aid to this impoverished country. Nevertheless, this international organization has taken some contradictory political positions that aimed in taking the responsibility off from the shoulders of the Saudi aggression coalition for it has done in Yemen, and to remove international pressure on this invading coalition.

It is reported that in October 2017, the United Nations blacklisted the Saudi aggression coalition for killing and wounding 683 Yemeni children and attacking dozens of schools and hospitals, but the Secretary-General of the United Nations recently removed the name of the brutal Saudi-led coalition from the blacklist of the organization and said that this coalition has not played a recent role in the death of children or violating their rights.

In this regard, the Director of the Child Rights Protection Department at Human Rights Watch confirmed in response to this action and said: “The Secretary-General of the United Nations removed the name of the Saudi Aggression Coalition from the blacklist, despite its continuing killing of children in Yemen, it is a stain on the page of this global organization,” adding, “Gutierrez has removed the name of these countries from the blacklist of the United Nations without any justification, despite the United Nations providing evidence of violations of children’s rights by these powerful member states in the Saudi-led coalition.”

In a related context, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Information, Nasruddin Amer, confirmed that the United Nations, since the beginning of the aggression, has been completely biased towards the countries of aggression as a result of the American hegemony over the UN resolution.

“The UN stance towards the aggression on Yemen is no longer a secret, but rather prejudices the victim in favor of the killer,” Amer said, indicating that Saudi and Emirati money is behind the UN biased decisions, and this was stated by the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, who removed Saudi Arabia from the list of shame for child abuse, after Saudi Arabia’s threats to stop its fundings to the UN, and it was then removed within days.

He pointed out that the general situation, especially the health situation, threatens of an upcoming catastrophe, especially with the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, which the aggression countries have planned its entry to Yemen and is now contributing to its spread by preventing all the required equipment, medicine and other important requirements to reach Yemen, the last of which was fuel. The fuel crisis has already caused a suspension of many health facilities that were already suffering, as a result of being targeted with raids since the beginning of the aggression.

Amer added that the Yemeni people will not remain still towards the Saudi siege and aggression, pointing out that the Yemeni military achievements will continue and escalate until the aggression stops, the siege ends, and all of the Yemeni lands are liberated.

It is worth noting that in 2016, for the first time in history, the United Nations blacklisted Saudi Arabia for a short period, but according to the United Nations Secretary-General at the time; Saudi Arabia exerted a lot of pressure on the United Nations to remove its name from the list and threatened to cut off the funding. Therefore, the Secretary-General retracted his decision and removed the name of Saudi Arabia from this blacklist. Therefore, it seems that the United Nations has not been able to take independent and responsible positions due to the pressures exerted by the countries of the coalition of aggression against them, and for this, it was witnessed during the past period some negative actions that were taken by the United Nations towards the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

In conclusion, it can be said that the government of Sana’a can never count on the United Nations to achieve any progress towards a just peace, and will not count on it in any matter in light of the American hegemony and Saudi money on it, which has driven it completely out of the circle of independence. Sanaa’s leadership continues to keep pace with the United Nations to express and affirm its good intentions and its true desire to reach a just and honorable peace. At the same time, it will remain the confrontation and steadfastness as it is their only option.