A senior United Nations official defended the decision by President Joe Biden to limit his response to the Yemen Houthi terrorist organization to a weak “global terrorist” branding, claiming the move can help “safeguard many transactions necessary for our humanitarian activities.”
The official – Edem Wosornu, the director of operations at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – added, however, that even this minimal action could hurt the destitute economy of Yemen and thus elevate the humanitarian needs of civilians.
Biden’s administration announced that he would brand Ansarullah, the official name of the Houthi terrorist gang, a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” (SDGT) in January, a label under the U.S. Treasury that imposes some weak limits on the group’s financial transactions. The announcement immediately followed Biden telling reporters the weekend before that terrorist designation was “irrelevant.”
Wosornu commended the sanction in front of the Security Council, stating that the type of sanction that the SDGT label represents is “designed to safeguard many transactions necessary for our humanitarian activities and essential commercial imports.”
“We welcome the 30-day delay in implementing the designation, which has enabled consultations with the humanitarian community and the private sector to mitigate its potential humanitarian impacts,” she said.
The U.N. official, added, however, that the label may still have “an effect on the economy, including commercial imports of essential items on which the people of Yemen depend on more than ever.”
“Humanitarian aid cannot make up for gaps in the supply of commercial goods,” she warned. “Such effects may reverberate across the country. Yemen’s already fragile economy cannot handle any further major shocks.”
The SDGT branding was a direct response to the Houthis declaring war on Israel and announcing they would use their position at the mouth of the Red Sea to attack commercial shipping vessels suspected of having any relationship with Israel, America, or Britain. The Houthis have since bombed Russian and Iran-bound vessels, despite promising not to attack Russian or Chinese ships and relying on Iran as one of their top international allies.
The SDGT label, which goes into effect on Friday, was panned by American counterterror experts as it allowed Biden to avoid placing the Houthis on the much more powerful list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), managed by the State Department.
“The only thing you get with the SDGT is a listing on [Office of Foreign Assets Control],” Kash Patel, a senior national security official under former President Donald Trump, told Breitbart News in January. “FTOs are hit with crippling sanctions and mandatory congressional notifications. They are literally suffocated from the global trade and banking [system].”
Trump had placed the Houthis on the FTO list during his term in response to their long history of human rights abuses in Yemen, their violent seizure of power in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, and their regular terrorist attacks on neighboring Saudi Arabia. Biden removed them from the FTO list as one of his first acts in office in 2021. At the time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken openly stated that he believed the Houthis still fit the definition of a terrorist organization, but the FTO restrictions were limiting the ability of humanitarian aid organizations to operate in Houthi-controlled areas. Shortly after the removal of the FTO designation, the State Department conceded that the Houthis were using their newfound access to foreign organizations to block and steal humanitarian aid.
“Ongoing interference in international aid operations by the Houthis in Yemen has prevented millions of people from receiving the assistance they need to survive,” an unnamed State Department official told reporters in May 2021. “We are also increasingly concerned by attempts by parties in southern Yemen to interfere with aid operations there as well.”
Elsewhere in her remarks to the Security Council on Wednesday, Wosornu noted that shipping costs to Yemen had increased dramatically since the Houthi war on global commerce, via its attacks in the Red Sea, began in November.
“We are receiving reports that transport costs to Hodeidah and Aden ports have, significantly increased since November due to the ongoing hostilities,” she said. Aden is currently under the control of the legitimate government of Yemen, which lost control of Sana’a shortly after the Houthis launched the ongoing civil war in 2014. “The World Food Programme has reported increases of up to 110 percent for containerized shipments to Yemen. Other humanitarian organizations have seen freight rate increases of up to 318 percent.”
Higher shipping costs, among other obstacles to distributing aid, could result in as many as 17.6 million people in the country facing “severe food insecurity,” including nearly two and a half million children, she said.
Wosornu also claimed that the “climate crisis” was a direct threat to Yemeni civilians.
“As the possibility of a return to conflict and increased humanitarian needs grows, we must remember that Yemen is at the forefront of the global climate crisis,” she claimed.
“Climate change emergencies accelerate the humanitarian crisis by driving displacement and increasing protection concerns. They threaten the lives, livelihoods and well-being of households.”
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