Washington, December 16 (RHC)-- The United States has reportedly halted the sale of some weapons to Saudi Arabia amid mounting concerns about the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen.
Since March 2015, more than 10,000 people have died in the ongoing conflict in Yemen—the vast majority killed by Saudi-led airstrikes. The U.S. has continued to sell warplanes and munitions to the Saudi-led coalition throughout the war, and U.S.-made munitions have been found at the scene of Saudi-led bombings where civilians have been killed.
Earlier this week, an unnamed official told reporters: "We’ve decided not to move forward with some foreign military sales cases for air-dropped munitions, PGMs [precision-guided munitions]. That’s obviously a direct reflection of the concerns that we have about Saudi strikes that have resulted in civilian casualties."
The ongoing war has also sparked a medical and hunger crisis. A new UNICEF report says a child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen because of malnutrition, diarrhea or respiratory-tract infection. The report also says Yemen’s most heavily bombed region, the Saada governorate, now has the world’s highest rate of stunting, a symptom of chronic malnourishment in children.