Flash floods have ravaged swaths of war-torn Yemen, leaving dozens dead and destroying thousands of homes, security officials and an aid group said on Monday.
At a time when Yemen is mired in escalated fighting, widespread hunger and a major COVID-19 outbreak, the spate of torrential rains is exacerbating the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
“The combination of coronavirus, conflict and heavy rains this year is hurting millions of Yemenis across the country,” said Abdi Ismail, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ (ICRC) Yemen mission.
Photo: EPA-EFE
In southern Yemen, 33,000 displaced people who were sheltering in camps lost their tents and belongings in the floods, the ICRC reported, adding that dozens have died across the country.
In the western provinces of Hajjah and Hodeida, security officials said that 23 people were killed or missing over the past 24 hours and 187 homes were destroyed.
With torrents sweeping away roads and dozens of vehicles, hundreds of newly displaced families in the area have become stranded without access to food.
Dirty floodwater has contaminated wells that many Yemenis rely on for water.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
A hotel marooned in muddied water in the capital, Sana’a, collapsed late on Monday, killing four people and injuring three.
Rescue teams continue to search for other missing people.
In the central province of Marib, a refuge for about 750,000 Yemenis who have fled Houthi rebel offensives since the start of the war, days of abnormally intense rains have hit 5,500 families, submerging their tents in water and mud, and washing away their food aid, Yemen’s official SABA news agency reported last week.
The devastating floods in the Arab world’s poorest country have exacerbated a cholera outbreak, with 127,900 suspected cases across eight provinces since January, the WHO said earlier this month.
The ICRC said that the floods have also accelerated the spread of dengue fever and malaria, as mosquitoes carrying the diseases breed in puddles.
Yemen’s war, now grinding into its sixth year, has killed more than 100,000 people and brought millions to the brink of famine.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing