Yemen

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I extend my thanks to my co-sponsors from the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen—the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond)—both of whom are a great credit to the country of their birth.

Along with many emails from my constituents in Glasgow who follow the situation closely, I have received many briefings from organisations for this debate. There are too many to name, but I am extremely grateful for those briefings outlining the desperate situation on the ground. I also recently met the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the APPG had a valuable session with Yemen-based non-governmental organisations. Yemeni constituents of mine have also shared their experiences of the situation in Yemen.

There has been a lot of talk about Yemen being on the brink of famine, with the International Committee of the Red Cross saying that there are only three to fourth months left to save Yemen from starvation. Jamie McGoldrick, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen, concurs, saying that there is only about three months’ supply of food left in the country.

As I understand it, part of the issue with declaring famine is that there are not enough independent people on the ground to do so. People are starving, though—of that there is no doubt. The aid agencies know what they are seeing and they are all begging the UK Government to help to get food into the country as a matter of the utmost urgency.

Blockades at Yemen’s ports by the Saudi-led coalition have contributed to the situation. Hudaydah is strategically important. It used to handle 70% of food imports, as well as humanitarian aid. It has been under sustained attack, leading to the destruction of infrastructure and rendering inoperable the cranes that used to unload the cargo ships. Unloading must now be done by hand, which is an impossible task.

The frustrating thing is that the port could be operating at the moment. The World Food Programme has bought and paid for cranes to replace those destroyed by the air strikes. They are currently sitting in a port in the UAE, after being refused access by the Saudi-led coalition. That is utterly unacceptable.

[George Kerevan]

Is my hon. Friend also aware that one of the offshoots of the blockade is that the boats carrying refugees from Somalia to Yemen are being attacked and sunk by Saudi Apache helicopters?

[Alison Thewliss]

Yes, and that incident was absolutely appalling and shocking. Nobody can fail to be upset by the pictures of those Somali people, who have suffered enough without being bombed.

Ministers must make sure that the cranes, which have been bought and paid for, are installed in Hudaydah. That would turn on the taps: it would get aid and commercial operations flowing again, and get things moving.

Hudaydah’s strategic importance is recognised by both the Houthis and the Saudis. Aid agencies, including the UN, fear that the conflict in and around Hudaydah is ramping up, which must be prevented at all costs. Half a million people would be displaced and it would make aid efforts all but impossible. Yemen’s primary port cannot be a frontline in this conflict, and I seek the assurance of Ministers that they will pursue the matter.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. We have already heard about the ridiculous situation of the UK Government giving aid with one hand while arming the antagonists with the other. Does she agree that famine relief and a ceasefire can come about only with the immediate suspension of the Government’s selling of arms to the Saudi regime, which has already been found to be guilty of breaches of international humanitarian law?

[Alison Thewliss]

Absolutely. As I said in Foreign Office questions earlier, £3.3 billion has been made from arms licences over the past two years, which dwarfs the £85 million in Government aid, welcome though that is. The arms sales must stop now. Peace will not happen if bombs continue to rain down on the heads of people in Yemen.

The UK Government’s role in establishing the UN verification and inspection mechanism at the port of Hudaydah, inspecting the goods entering Yemen’s ports while they are still at sea, is welcome, but Save the Children told me yesterday that that has not prevented the Saudi-led coalition from carrying out its own inspections, thereby delaying vital aid shipments. That can mean a delay of up to three months in delivering aid and medical supplies, leaving aid workers making life and death decisions on the ground about who they can help with dwindling resources.

Some shipments have been diverted from Hudaydah and around the coast to the smaller port of Aden, meaning that convoys have instead to complete the dangerous journey overland, via checkpoints and across the frontline, adding at least another three weeks to the time taken for that aid to reach the people it needs to reach and risking the lives of everybody on the convoy.

Moving goods and people across the country also requires confirmation of deconfliction from authorities in Yemen, without which the convoy will become a target in the war, and nobody wants that to happen. Other Members will no doubt outline the grave mistakes and errors that have happened during air strikes. NGOs based in the country tell me that they are fearful for the lives of their workers at every single checkpoint where they get stopped. They become targets, regardless of the assurances given to them by the governing parties and their warm words.

All the organisations I have met have stressed the difficulty of moving around Yemen, the complications with visas and the delays caused by petty bureaucracy. Some agencies have not been able to make field visits to support their operations on the ground and to bring back evidence that will enable funders to encourage more people to donate to their campaigns. They are not being well enough supported by the Government agencies that should be facilitating aid.

There are increasing problems in getting to Yemen, with limitations on travel by land and sea. Sana’a airport is also closed and people cannot leave, including those who seek urgent medical assistance. I ask the Government to speak to the Saudis about removing that blockage so that people can get in and out by air and receive treatment.

All the delays are costing lives and leaving the population with long-term health problems as a result of severe malnutrition. For want of clean water and a suitable diet, people are less able to fight off disease and their immune systems are more susceptible to cholera. There have been a suspected 22,000 cholera cases in 15 governorates in the past six months alone, and at least 100 people have died as a result. Tragically, UNICEF estimates that 63,000 children died in 2016 from preventable diseases linked to malnutrition. That is 8,500 more children than were born in the whole of Scotland last year. That is a generation. The future of Yemen hangs in the balance, and the Government must do more.