November 12, 2018 — Commenting on Jeremy Hunt’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Sanj Srikanthan, Senior Vice President Europe of the International Rescue Committee, said:
“I am heartened to see Jeremy Hunt meeting with the leaders of Saudi Arabia today. It is a welcome signal of Mr Hunt’s commitment to promoting peace in Yemen. Active and urgent diplomacy at the highest level is needed to stop more civilian deaths.
Mr Hunt’s visit follows a weekend of intense fighting in the vital port city of Hodeidah. We are all too aware of the reports of impending famine. Hodeidah port is the gateway to 80% of the country’s food and supplies. An all-out assault on Hodeidah will be a disaster – not just for the 600, 000 inhabitants of the city, men, women and children who are at very real risk of starving to death in the coming weeks and months. This famine would not be a result of failed rains: Yemen’s humanitarian crisis is entirely man-made.
The television images of starving children during the Ethiopian famine in the eighties was our generation’s wake-up to the horrors of injustice, poverty and warfare andthe world pledged never to repeat such horrors. Sadly the sheer scale of the tragedy unfolding in Yemen with 14 million at risk of starvation, dwarfs the Ethopian famine. Jeremy Hunt now has a unique opportunity to stop history repeating itself. He must grab it.”