Saudi Arabia, at war with Yemen rebels, sends aid to nation
MARIB, Yemen — At a wind-swept camp for those displaced by Yemen’s war, a young Yemeni woman named Leemi, who supports her child and eight others, gratefully accepted aid from Saudi Arabia.
That’s even after she said a Saudi-led airstrike destroyed her home near Sirwah, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the tent she now calls home in Marib province.
Leemi’s story reflects the two faces of the kingdom in the nearly 3-year-old war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia says it has spent nearly a billion dollars in aid to Yemen and plans with its partners to spend another $1.5 billion.
Meanwhile, the campaign by the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen’s Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, has been a major cause of the country’s humanitarian disaster, rights groups say. The kingdom’s devastating air campaign repeatedly has struck markets, medical facilities and civilian targets, drawing international criticism. The coalition’s blockade on ports under Houthi control has been a main factor pushing the country into near starvation, according to U.N. agencies and rights groups.