Alwaght- Saudi Arabia’s brutal bombing campaign with poison gas all over Yemen is the source of world’s deadliest cholera epidemic in the war-torn country.
Yemen's army spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman said on Saturday that Saudi Arabia is responsible for the current cholera epidemic among Yemen's vulnerable population as Saudi fighter jets continue to spread biological agents in the air, which subsequently contaminate water supply systems.
Luqman further described Yemen’s cholera outbreak as a “bioterrorism plot” hatched by the United States, Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime of Israel.
He stressed that the outbreak of highly contagious diseases, especially cholera, is directly related to the Saudi regime’s aerial bombardment campaign.
The senior Yemeni military official went on to say that Saudi warplanes have on occasions released poisonous gases, which mix with the surrounding air, come down in the form of rain and cause groundwater pollution at last.
Luqman emphasized that children began to show symptoms of cholera ten days after Saudi jets bombarded an area in Yemen.
Yemen’s cholera outbreak, world’s worst on record
Yemen’s cholera outbreak has killed at least 2,177 people since 27 April. The World Health Organization now estimates the number of suspected cholera cases to be over 862,000, as of 22 October, making Yemen’s outbreak the world’s worst on record.
The spread of the outbreak, which has quickly surpassed Haiti as the biggest since modern records began in 1949, has been exacerbated by hunger and malnutrition. While there were 815,000 cases of cholera in Haiti between 2010 and 2017, Yemen has exceeded that number in just six months.
The Saudi-led coalition started a bloody aggression on Yemen in March 2015 to oust the popular Ansarullah movement and restore to power fugitive Abdul Rabbuh Mansour Hadi who resigned as president and fled to Riyadh. The Saudis have failed to achieve their stated objective and are now stuck in the Yemen quagmire while indiscriminately bombarding the impoverished stated on an almost daily basis.
The Saudi-led aggression has crippled the country, causing widespread internal displacement, the collapse of the public health system, and leaving millions on the brink of famine.
It is estimated that 19.3 million Yemenis – more than two-thirds of the population – do not have access to clean water and sanitation.
Cholera used as a weapon
Cholera is caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholera and has been weaponized by the US, Japan (in World War II), South Africa (under apartheid), Iraq (under Saddam), and other states. To be most effective, cholera must be spread through water supplies. That’s what’s happening in Yemen now. More than two years of bombing has largely destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure, water and sewage systems are destroyed, hospitals and clinics are damaged and the population of about 25 million has almost no protection against the spread of cholera.
Yemenis blame Saudis for biological warfare
Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has singled out Saudi Arabia as the source of the catastrophic cholera outbreak in Yemen.
The Russia Today Arabic news channel on Saturday quoted Saleh as saying that the Saudi-led coalition was behind the spread of the highly contagious disease through the use of internationally banned weapons.
“The coalition is using devastating weapons such as cluster and thermobaric bombs which leave very harmful effects for the people of Yemen,” he added.
Meanwhile, Yemenis on social media and on the ground have reported that Saudi warplanes are spraying chemicals substances across the country.
While many reasons have been given following the spread of cholera across Yemen especially the destruction of health services and water facilities, but many Yemenis believe that cholera in the country is part of a biological warfare waged by the Saudi-led regime against the country.
