Yemen Fuel Supplies 'weaponised', Putting Millions At Risk

Sanaa, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Jul, 2020 ) :A fuel shortage is blighting life in the swathes of Yemen controlled by Huthi rebels, cutting electricity supplies, halting water pumps and stranding people in need of medical care as warring sides trade blame.

Energy scarcity is nothing new in a country ravaged by years of conflict, but queues at the pumps have been getting longer by the day since mid-June.

"What's happening is an injustice," said Sanaa resident Hames Al-Tawil as he waited in a snaking line of vehicles that reached the gates of the presidential palace four kilometers (2.5 miles) away.

Cars and vans parked three abreast stretched through the summer heat as far as the eye could see.

"At least have mercy on the people who've been waiting in this queue for three days," Tawil said through the rusted door frame of his pickup truck.

Yemen is already at breaking point, facing what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis after almost six years of violence.

The war, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, pits the government against the Iran-allied Huthis, who in 2014 seized the capital Sanaa and much of the country's north.

The government and the Saudi-led military coalition backing it have accused the rebels of causing fuel shortages to boost their case for the lifting of crippling restrictions imposed by the coalition's naval and air blockade.

The Huthis meanwhile accuse coalition forces of obstructing fuel shipments to hamstring them economically.