Just before the holy month of Ramadan, the Saudi-led coalition announced a ceasefire in Yemen, which means no more bombing and destruction of the country.
“The Joint Forces Command of the Coalition hereby announces cessation of military operations in Yemen beginning at (0600) Wednesday, March 30 2022,” the coalition spokesman Brigadier General Turki Al-Maliki announced.
Yes, the ceasefire has ended, but Saudi’s siege on Yemen is still in place, whose impact on the Yemenis is as worse - if not more - as the bombs.
The fuel ships that arrive at Yemen’s Hudaydah port already have the UN clearance certificate, which means they are legally allowed to dock their ships in Yemen. The Saudi-led siege on Yemen prevents the fuel ships from docking at the Hudeydah port, which is Yemen’s largest port. These ships are taken to the Coalition Holding Area (CHA) without letting them offload their cargo on the Hudeydah port.
This is a beautiful graphical representation by Richard Medhurst:
Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world and it has been described as the worst humanitarian crisis by the United Nations. A country like Yemen has to pay $9.5/gallon for gasoline. THAT’S A LOT.
In the shipping industry, there is something called “demurrage cost.” It is a fine that the owner of the ship can charge if the vessel doesn’t offload the cargo on time.
In 2021, the ships that were bringing fuel for public consumption were detained for 158 days on average. As a result, each vessel had to pay $3.2 million in demurrage costs.
Again, in 2021, the Yemenis paid $644 million in extra money for diesel and gasoline alone. Don’t forget we are talking about one of the poorest nations having to pay staggering sums of money because of an immoral and illegal Saudi-led siege.
Shortage of fuel doesn’t impact the vehicle owners only. Every citizen suffers when there is a fuel shortage.
I know what you are thinking right now. “If Hudeydah port is blocked why don’t they use other ports such as Aden and Mukalla to import fuel?” That’s a brilliant question but there are some problems with it.
80% of the Yemenis population lives near Hudeydah port and Sana’a - which is the country’s capital - is closest to the Hudeydah port as well. The other two ports are on the other side of the country, far away from where the majority of the population resides.
See for yourself:
Apart from the transportation costs that it will add to the final price at the pump, these roads are often occupied by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda or any other militia that can force the truckers to pay taxes, which are ultimately paid by the Yemenis at the pump in the form of higher prices.
The total number of ships released to Hudeydah port for public consumption is as follows:
2019 = 80 ships.
2020 = 63 ships.
2021 = 5 ships.
2022 = 1 (until end of March).
That’s how bad the situation in Yemen is. Is it possible to run an entire country on 5 fuel ships in a year? Definitely not.
As a consequence, the Yemenis are consuming way less diesel and gasoline than they actually need from the Hudeydah port. In 2021, they consumed only 10% of what they actually needed from Hudeydah.
The Saudis know that it is hurting the civilians, but they are doing it anyway.
This situation is similar to Medieval times when an army would surround a city to make sure that no one, inside the city, can receive food, water, and other basic necessities from outside. They would do it intentionally to starve the people.
As Richard Medhurst says, the siege on Yemen is a “Silent Killer.” No one talks about it. Everyone thinks bombing is bad, which I 100% agree with, but you can’t ignore the siege too, which ( as shown above ) is as deadly as bombing.
The numerical figures as well as all the graphical representations are taken from Richard Medhurst’s investigation report on Yemen, which I definitely recommend you to take a look at.
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