Saturday, 5 March 2022

When the Music Stops: Yemen, Art and War

 

With world attention focused on Ukraine, Gulf despots are also getting away with wanton aggression- with British support,  For over half a decades the people in Yemen have known nothing but war.. More than half of Yemen’s population  continue to face the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, unable to access food for survival, and the rate of poverty and hunger is increasing every day.
Eight million Yemenis will likely lose all humanitarian aid in March unless urgent funds are delivered, United Nations officials have warned, amid an escalation in a long-running war that last month caused the highest toll in civilian casualties in at least three years.
 More than 650 civilians were killed or injured in January by air raids, shelling, small arms fire and other violence, “by far the highest toll in at least three years”, according to UN figures.
Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Houthi rebels took control of much of the country’s north, including the capital, Sanaa, forcing the president to first flee to the south and then to Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led military coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed by the United States with the aim of restoring President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power.
As is the case in Ukraine, The world must not forget Yemen a crisis that continiues to threaten millions of lives , that shoes no signs of abating., Potential disruption to global wheat supplies after Russia's invasion of Ukraine is raising concerns that war-torn Yemen's hunger crisis and food price inflation could deepen, with some Yemenis rushing to buy flour.
The World Food Program (WFP) this week said the Ukraine crisis is likely to further increase fuel and food prices, especially grains, in import-dependent Yemen where food costs have more than doubled in many areas in the past year.
Russia and Ukraine account for about 29% of global wheat exports and interruption to that flow is pushing up global prices.Conflict and inflation in Yemen have pushed millions to the brink of famine. Despite  years of destruction, ordinary Yemenis are still hoping for peace.
Against the might of arms dealers, warlords and militias, two talented survivors of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis still hope for a better future. Declassified spoke to Saber Bamatraf, a pianist, and Shatha Altowai, an artist. 
The couple fled to Scotland to escape threats from Yemen’s socially conservative Houthi rebel group; and now live just an hour away from an arms factory that supplies Saudi Arabia and profits from the devastation of their hometown. 
 
Producer/director: Phil Miller
 
All music courtesy Saber Bamatraf - https://saberbamatraf.com/ 
 
Paintings courtesy Shatha Altowai - https://www.shathaaltowai.com/

https://declassifieduk.org/yemen-the-war-the-world-forgot/

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