Yemen: Political and Humanitarian Situation

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I pay tribute to him for going to Yemen with Oxfam, as well as to Oxfam for its work on the ground.

After first mentioning that more than 2 million children under the age of 5 are acutely malnourished, including half a million who are at the most extreme level of that critical danger, I was going to come on to the situation with the cranes and the ports. The World Food Programme has, I understand, been refused access for the four new mobile cranes that it had provided to aid the situation. Could the Minister provide any further updates on the situation with the cranes? If food and medical supplies cannot get in, we are unlikely to see any alleviation of the problem.

It is not just about access to Hodeidah port. There is no access to Sana’a Airport, and the route through Aden is at capacity; people cannot get anything more through there. The aid that is getting through Aden is then subject to an overland journey, which is, as hon. Members can imagine, very difficult and extremely dangerous in a conflict situation for the aid agencies involved. They are having to take aid overland. Had access been possible, that aid could quite easily have gone through Hodeidah port.

On 2 July, the World Health Organisation managed to get a shipment in through Hodeidah, which included 20 ambulances, 100 cholera kits, hospital equipment and 128,000 bags of intravenous fluids. It sounds like big numbers, and it was a 403 tonne shipment that they managed to get in—but there are 200,000 cases of cholera. That is not even enough bags of intravenous fluids for every person that has cholera. It is a drop in the ocean in terms of the need in that region; there is a need to get aid in quickly and to prevent any further delays. We must make all the efforts we can to make sure that aid gets to the people that need it and gets there now. The people in Yemen cannot wait any longer.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned the issue of arms sales. It is absolutely clear that aid agencies that are working so hard on the ground are being impeded in their work by the bombs falling from the sky above them and the danger that they face every single day. They cannot provide the services that they would like to, because they are constantly under attack.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a poignant speech. Would she agree that UK Government policy appears to be undermining itself, selling arms on the one hand and trying to provide aid through the Department for International Development on the other?

[Alison Thewliss]

I agree that it is a huge waste of money to be providing aid and to also be endorsing the bombs that are being sold in such huge volumes and at such huge financial value. That has to stop. We cannot continue to ask aid agencies to put their staff at risk every single day. It is not just international aid agencies such as Oxfam, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council or Islamic Relief, but the locally based aid agencies as well. They are at significantly greater risk, because they are right there on the ground facing severe dangers every single day. I implore the Minister to act to try to provide the support and ceasefire that we need to allow aid agencies to do their work and to prevent any more children dying from preventable causes. It is a situation that we can fix.