Six years of war in Yemen have brought the country to the brink of an absolute humanitarian disaster. The Saudi-led alliance, backed by the UK and the US, has imposed tremendous suffering on the Yemeni people. With 16 million suffering hunger and 400,000 children at risk of death from starvation, the situation is getting worse by the day. And the imperialists are unwilling to assist the victims. 

The Tories claim they are spending all their time and energy ‘dealing’ with the pandemic. However, much like Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s forced tears on the television, this is a smokescreen for what is going on behind the scenes.

With the whole world’s attention turned towards the coronavirus crisis, the western-backed Saudi war on Yemen has continued unabated. The war machine and arms industry, fueling this savagery, have been deemed to essential to shut down during the pandemic.

A series of attacks on Saudi oil installations have set sparks flying once again in the Middle East. Only months after a last-minute cancellation of a US strike on Iran – and weeks after reaching out for talks without any preconditions – US President Donald Trump is yet again filling the twittersphere with threats and intimidation. Meanwhile, oil prices shot up by 20 percent and the ripple effects are already working their way through the sensitive oil and currency markets.

Over the past week, tensions within the Saudi led coalition fighting Houthi forces in Yemen have reached a critical point. Between Sunday and Wednesday, troops loyal to the Southern Transitional Council (STC) took hold of all but a few remaining areas of the port city of Aden and surrounded the presidential palace in which the cabinet was essentially besieged.

As western media overflows with damning images of the atrocities carried out in Syria's Aleppo, the humanitarian disaster in Yemen is being more or less quietly brushed under the carpet. The reason? The west is elbow deep in the Yemeni tragedy.

Since early Thursday morning hundreds of fighter jets from Saudi Arabia and a wide coalition of Arab states have been bombing targets across Yemen, killing dozens, destroying all major runways and much of the key infrastructure of the country. Yet again Yemen, which is the poorest Arab country, has become a target for savage attacks by the Saudi regime.

Dramatic events are taking place in Yemen. The rule of Saleh is clearly finished, and the combined powers of Saudi Arabia, the US, the EU and all that is reactionary is manoeuvring in order to crush the revolution. This, however, will not be an easy task. Now is the time to finish the regime! All that is lacking is a bold leadership that is up to the task.

Following the regime’s brutal massacre of protestors on Friday, March 18, the revolution has moved forward in Yemen. The state apparatus has split, and most of the army has turned against President Saleh. After the repression failed to achieve its objectives, the ruling elite and the imperialist powers are desperately trying to find a “safe” alternative. But that will not stop the revolution.

These days, there are a lot of reports on Yemen in the mainstream media in the West. Most of these reports really don’t say anything about the desperate situation inside Yemen. Furthermore, they say nothing about the class struggle and the revolutionary traditions in Yemen.

50 years ago on this day, after four years of revolutionary struggle against British colonialism, what was later known as the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen was born. This event, which is consciously hidden by the bourgeoisie today, marked one of the peaks in the revolutionary wave that swept through the Middle East in the post-war period.