A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Saturday, November 18, 2017
Three Yemen cities run out of clean water due to lack of fuel for pumps: ICRC
Children rest on a bed at their family hut at a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, Yemen November 12, 2017. REUTERS/Abduljabbar ZeyadNOVEMBER 17, 2017
GENEVA (Reuters) - Three cities in Yemen have run out of clean water because a blockade by a Saudi-led coalition has cut imports of fuel needed for pumping and sanitation, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday.
As a result of the development in Taiz, Saada and Hodeidah close to one
million people are now deprived of clean water and sanitation as Yemen
emerges from the world’s worst cholera outbreak in modern times, the
ICRC said.
Other cities, including the capital Sanaa, are expected to be in the same situation within two weeks, ICRC said in a statement.
“The water and sewage systems in Hodeidah, Saada and Taiz stopped
operating because of a lack of fuel,” the head of the ICRC in Yemen,
Alexandre Faite, said in the statement.
The coalition closed all air, land and sea access to Yemen on Nov. 6
following the interception of a missile fired towards the Saudi capital,
saying it had to stem the flow of arms from Iran to its Houthi
opponents in the war in Yemen.
The United Nations has said the blockade could lead to “untold
thousands” of deaths, and that its partial lifting by the Saudi-led
coalition is not enough.
Iolanda Jacquemet, an ICRC spokeswoman in Geneva, said the shutdown of
water services was a very bad sign for the fight against cholera, which
had been on the wane for weeks in Yemen, although new cases are still
running at about 2,600 per day.
“We’re very scared that cholera might come back,” she said, noting that
the huge outbreak, which has sickened over 900,000 people, started in
the capital Sanaa in April just 10 days after the sewage treatment plant
had stopped working for lack of fuel.
“If these water treatment plants and sewage plants stop working, it can
only bring cholera back and other water-borne diseases,” she said.
As medical supplies run down because of the blockade, ICRC staff had
been approached for help by five medical centres that it does not
normally support.
Already 7 million people are in “famine-like conditions”, and the U.N.
has said that number could rise to over 10 million if Yemen does not get
food and nutritional supplies fast.
Famine is only officially declared after an inspection team has carried
out a formal survey on the ground, so there is no guarantee that famine
is not already underway.