Link to Article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/16/irc-warns-yemen-at-risk-of-massive-deterioration-in-2021
Continued conflict, world hunger and collapsing international aid response puts Yemen most at risk of a humanitarian catastrophe in 2021. This is the third year in a row that Yemen has been put at the top of this grim list. In an interview with Al Jazeera from the capital, Sanaa, she called for “more commitment than we see today” from internal, regional and global actors to end the conflict. She claims that “Without this, things will not change in Yemen; the ordinary civilians of Yemen will really have no future and no hope”. Jazeera says “Twenty-four million people are in need of some kind of humanitarian aid – be it food, protection, health services, or education”. She made a call to action to the UN for humanitarian funding in order to help Yemen meet basic day-to-day needs.
I never really stop to think about what I have until I read about articles like these. Yemen is a country who has been named most at risk for a humanitarian catastrophe for three years in a row now and I am currently at home sitting on my comfy couch eating pringles. These people are living in a war with no food and have been for awhile now. The funding for Yemen has been decreasing and at this rate I’m afraid we are about to wipe out an entire society. The lasting impact of this crisis is human lives, and how long can we morally sit back and let these people die?
This relates to a big discussion that we have talked about in class and a topic that has been talked about from many politicians. Is it the United States job or the United Nations job to put out funding for these struggling countries? It’s a hard question, because the United States has a lot of inner issues that it needs to put funding towards, alongside being in trillion of dollars of debt. But morally, how can we sit back and watch these countries struggle and have their people die because of it? It’s a hard question, and the sad thing is, there is no right answer.