Alwaght- Saudi Arabia's Two and a half years old siege on neighboring Yemen has claimed lives of some 10,000 of patients, who were prevented from travelling abroad for treatment, Yemen’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
Yemeni media quoted the ministry’s spokesman Abdul-Hakim al-Kuhlani as saying that the deaths were the result of the Saudi regime’s “continued aggression, siege and continued hostile restrictions on Sana’a International Airport," Press TV reported.
Saying that over 75,000 patients are estimated to be in need of seeking treatment abroad each year, al-Kuhlani rebuked Riyadh and its allies for targeting Yemeni civilians and, at the same time, preventing those injured from leaving the country to receive treatment.
The Saudi-led coalition also blocks the entry of medicine into the country, now hit by a cholera spread, which has killed hundreds of people, said the official.
World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday the cholera epidemic has killed at least 923 in Yemen since late April.
The organization's Yemen office also said over 124,000 suspected cases of cholera have been registered across the country since April 27.
According to Yemen's health ministry spokesman, Saudi regime's all-out blockade has prevented the specialist cardiac operation center at the Revolution Hospital, Sana’a’s biggest health facility, from accessing direly-needed and basic medicine and equipment.
Abu-Zaid al-Kindi, the director of the hospital’s cardiac operation center, meanwhile, said “the children with congenital malformations are dying because of the blockade on Yemen and their incapability to travel abroad".
The capital’s International Airport also announced that the Saudi embargo has left 100,000 Yemenis stranded abroad, while blocking the exit of 300,000 others, including patients.
Saudi Arabia backed by some despotic regimes launched a deadly aggression on Yemen and simultaneously placed an embargo on the impoverished nation on 27 March 2015 in a bid to restore power back to Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who resigned as Yemeni president and fled to Riyadh.
The Saudi led coalition's indiscriminate bombardments have inflected heavy damages on infrastructure of the already impoverished Yemeni nation, shuttering some 300 hospitals and clinics, as well as destroying the country’s health, water, and sanitation systems.
