Alwaght- Yemen's Aden port was declared as an “infested” city on Monday after the number of coronavirus cases there jumped and clashes erupted elsewhere in the south between Saudi-backed militants and the UAE-sponsored separatists.
Saudi-led coalition's five-year aggression on Yemen has shattered the Arab country's health system, pushed millions to the brink of famine.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says there is a full-blown transmission of the virus in Yemen, with the disease spreading undetected among a population with some of the lowest levels of immunity to disease compared with other states.
Testing capabilities are inadequate but the WHO has also urged local authorities to transparently report confirmed cases.
The Aden-based national coronavirus committee late on Sunday announced 17 new COVID-19 cases, 10 of them in the southern port city, to raise the total count in areas under the Saudi-backed government’s control to 51 with eight deaths.
The committee said Aden had been declared an “infested city” due to the spread of the coronavirus and other diseases already rife in the country after recent flooding. It said movement from Aden to other regions was barred, except for transport of goods.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies, including the UAE, launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in order to bring Hadi back to power and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
More than half of Yemen’s hospitals and clinics have been destroyed or closed during the bitter war.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past five years.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have purchased billions of dollars' worth of weapons from the United States, France and the United Kingdom in their war on Yemen.
Riyadh and its allies have been widely criticized for the high civilian death toll resulted from their bombing campaign in Yemen.
At least 80% of the 28 million-strong population is reliant on aid to survive in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
