'Dark Moment of Shame': With Explicit US Backing, Saudi Attack on Yemen's Humanitarian Lifeline Begins

With a “green light” from the Trump administration and essential military support from the U.S. government, Saudi-led forces plowed ahead with an assault on the Yemeni port city of Hodeida on Wednesday, brushing aside dire warnings from international humanitarian organizations and a small group of American lawmakers that an attack on the key aid harbor could spark a full-blown famine and endanger millions of lives.

“We thought it could not get any worse, but unfortunately we were wrong.”
—Jolien Veldwijk, CARE

Responding to the early stages of the attack—which began with an estimated 30 Saudi airstrikes within half an hour, guided by U.S. military intelligence—Win Without War wrote on Twitter that the attack is “a dark moment of shame for the United States. We could have stopped this.”

Hodeidah is currently home to around 600,000 civilians, and around 80 percent of all humanitarian aid that flows into Yemen arrives at the city’s port, which is currently controlled by Houthi rebels. International observers have warned that a military fight over the port city could halt life-saving food and medicine and cause the starvation of millions.

“Some civilians are entrapped, others forced from their homes,” Jolien Veldwijk—acting country director for the humanitarian group CARE, which is still operating in Yemen—told Reuters on Wednesday as the U.S.-backed Saudi assault on Hodeida began. “We thought it could not get any worse, but unfortunately we were wrong.”