The already "staggering" number of 8.4 million Yemenis who don't know where their next meal will come from could double very quickly if ports in the rebel-held north are attacked and shut down, the head of the aid agency Oxfam America said Tuesday.
Abby Maxman, who spent a week in northern Yemen earlier this month, said in an interview with The Associated Press that the country is already "on the brink of starvation or ultimately famine, and the tipping point for that could happen very quickly."
Government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, are trying to retake the port city of Hodeida, the main entry point for food in a country dependent on imports, from Iranian-allied Shiite rebels known as Houthis. The United Nations said Hodeida remains open, but there is growing concern of the impact of a port closure.
Maxman said "the humanitarian implications will be massive" if Hodeida and the other smaller Red Sea ports controlled by the Houthis shut down.
With a population just under 30 million, she said, 8.4 million people "already are down to one meal per day and don't know where their next meal will come from, one can see that doubling almost very quickly, or immediately, if and when the ports shut down."
The president and CEO of Oxfam America said families she spoke to in camps for the displaced in Khamer and Amran "who have suffered at the hands of an ongoing conflict that is far larger than themselves for years" are very caught up in day-to-day survival and lack hope and the ability to see a future for themselves.
"And the data corroborates what I saw of children with malnutrition, with people who are looking for one meal per day, not having their basic health needs met, Maxman said.
They feel grateful, she said, "to be in an internally displaced persons' camp."
Maxman said she was struck by Yemen's endemic inequality which she saw first-hand in the capital Sanaa — grocery stores stocked with all kinds of food and fruit and even a popcorn machine and a cotton candy machine, and people struggling to find something to eat.
The Yemen conflict was sparked by the Houthi takeover of Yemen's capital Sanaa in 2014, which routed the internationally recognized government. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been at war with the Houthis since 2015.
Maxman said: "If the conflict continues, if there is an assault or an attack on a major port, if things continue to go a certain way, it would be likely that risk of famine increases."
"The combination of what was before the conflict extreme inequality, dependence on imports, the failing infrastructure in the country and the lack of institutional capabilities to provide movement and access are creating the conditions that are exacerbating extreme humanitarian suffering at scale," she said.
Her message to the warring parties was simple: Return to the negotiating table.
Maxman said the Trump administration should continue "to use the muscle and influence they have" with the U.S.-backed coalition and support efforts by U.N. special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths and the U.N. Security Council to bring the warring parties together "because only a political solution will bring peace to Yemen."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for an American believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment.
Ryan Corbett was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there a year earlier. He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan's private sector through consulting services and lending.
Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.
In a petition sent Thursday, lawyers for Corbett say that he's been threatened with physical violence and torture and has been malnourished and deprived of medical care. He's been held in solitary confinement, including in a basement cell with almost no sunlight and exercise, and his physical and mental health have significantly deteriorated, the lawyers say.
Corbett has been able to speak with his family by phone five times since his arrest, including last month. His family has not been able to see him — his only visits have been two check-ins from a third-party government — and their characterizations of his mistreatment are based on accounts from recently released prisoners who were with him and his openly dispirited tone in conversations.
“During Mr. Corbett’s most recent call with his wife and children, Mr. Corbett indicated that the mental torture and anguish have caused him to lose all hope,” said the petition, signed by the Corbett family attorneys, Ryan Fayhee and Kate Gibson.
The petition is addressed to Alice Edwards, an independent human rights investigator and the special rapporteur for torture in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the U.N. It asks Edwards, who was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, to “urgently reach out to the Taliban to secure Mr. Corbett’s immediate release and freedom from torture, as guaranteed by international law.”
"This situation is just dragging on, and I’m increasingly concerned and taking steps that I hope will make a difference and help the situation — just increasingly concerned and panicking about Ryan’s deteriorating health and physical and mental health," Corbett's wife, Anna, said in an interview. “And that was leading me to take this next step.”
The U.S. government is separately working to get Corbett home and has designated him as wrongfully detained. A State Department spokesman told reporters last month that officials had continually pressed for Corbett's release and were “using every lever we can to try to bring Ryan and these other wrongfully detained Americans home from Afghanistan."
A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Afghanistan said this week that it had no knowledge of Corbett's case.
Corbett, of Dansville, New York, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 and relocated there with his family in 2010, supervising several non-governmental organizations.
The family was forced to leave Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban captured Kabul, but he returned the following January so that he could renew his business visa. Given the instability on the ground, the family discussed the trip and “we were all pretty nervous,” Corbett's wife said.
But after that first uneventful trip, he returned to the country in August 2022 to train and pay his staff and resume a business venture that involved consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluating international development projects.
While on a trip to the northern Jawzjan province, Corbett and a Western colleague were confronted by armed members of the Taliban and were taken first to a police station and later to an underground prison.
Anna Corbett said that when she learned her husband had been taken to a police station, she got “really scared” but that he was optimistic the situation would be quickly resolved.
That, however, did not happen, and Anna Corbett, who has three teenage children and makes regular trips to Washington, said she's trying to advocate as forcefully as she can while not letting “anxiety take over.”
“I feel like it’s the uncertainty of all of it that just is so difficult because you just don’t know what’s going to come at you — what call, what news," she said. "And I’m worried about Ryan and the effect of the trauma on him and then also on my kids, just what they’re experiencing. I've tried to protect them the best I could, but this is so difficult.”
Associated Press writer Riazat Butt in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
This family photo shows Ryan Corbett holding rabbits with his daughter Miriam and son Caleb in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2020. Lawyers for Corbett, believed held by the Taliban for nearly two years, are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Corbett was abducted on August 10, 2022 after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there one year earlier, on a valid 12-month business visa to pay and train staff. (AP Photo/Anna Corbett)
