GENEVA: Houthi militias and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh have destroyed and looted more than 55 percent of health facilities in Yemen since September 2014, a Yemeni official said on Tuesday.
Health sector losses in Aden amounted to $7 million, Health Ministry Undersecretary Dr. Ali Al-Walidi said at a symposium on Yemen organized by the British Arab Center for Strategic Studies and Development in Geneva.
Al-Thawrah Hospital and the Swedish Children’s Hospital in the city of Taiz have been repeatedly attacked, he added.
Rebels “targeted the dialysis department and the cholera treatment center at the Republican Hospital in Taiz,” he said.
“The power and drainage network was stopped, and the hospital’s dialysis machines were destroyed.”
Emergency vehicles and primary health care programs in the ministry’s general office have been looted, Al-Walidi said.
“The legitimate Yemeni government has made great efforts to reduce the spread of epidemics, with the generous support of the brothers in the Arab alliance, particularly Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait,” he added.
Saudi Arabia has allocated $74.8 million to fight cholera, and 55 tons of medicines and medical supplies have been sent by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief), whose medical aid to Yemen is ongoing.
“KSRelief has repaired 16 hospitals and health facilities in Aden. It has equipped operation rooms and oncology centers with medical supplies and medicines for chronic and infectious diseases,” Al-Walidi said.
The UAE Red Crescent delivered $12 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Yemen to rehabilitate 24 hospitals in nine governorates, restore Khalifa Hospital in Socotra, and send medical equipment and supplies to Taiz, Marib, Hadramout and other governorates.
Yemen official: 55% of health facilities bombed, looted by rebels
Yemen official: 55% of health facilities bombed, looted by rebels
Morocco to spend $330 million on flood relief plan
RABAT: Morocco plans to spend 3 billion dirhams ($330 million) to upgrade infrastructure and support flood-hit residents, farmers, and businesses in its northwestern plains, the prime minister’s office said on Thursday.
Weeks of torrential rain and releases from overflowing dams have inundated villages, farmland, and the city of Ksar El Kebir in the northwest of the North African country.
Floods have displaced 188,000 people and submerged 110,000 hectares of farmland, according to official figures.
The government has declared the hardest-hit municipalities disaster areas, the prime minister’s office said in a statement carried by state media.
It said 1.7 billion dirhams of the relief budget would be allocated to repairing basic infrastructure, including roads and hydro-agricultural networks.
The remainder would fund rehousing, reconstruction of destroyed homes, support to small businesses, and assistance to farmers and livestock breeders.
Moroccan authorities, backed by the army, have set up camps for evacuees and deployed helicopters and rescue boats, state television reported.
Access to the largely deserted city of Ksar El Kebir remains banned after the Loukkos River burst its banks earlier this month, inundating several neighbourhoods.
Water Minister Nizar Baraka said on Thursday that the Oued Makhazine dam, which had reached 160 percent of capacity, was forced to gradually release water downstream due to exceptional inflows. Rainfall this winter was 35 percent above the average recorded since the 1990s, and three times higher than last year, he said.
Snow cover in the Atlas and Rif mountains reached a record 55,495 square km this winter before shrinking to 23,186 square km, he said, adding that melting water would further replenish dams.
Morocco’s national dam-filling rate has risen to nearly 70 percent from 27 percent a year earlier, with several large dams being partially emptied to absorb new inflows.
The exceptional rainfall has ended a seven-year drought that had prompted the country to ramp up investments in desalination.
