First Published: 8th November, 2018.
Yemen is a desert country in the Middle East in the southern point of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen borders Saudi Arabia to the North and Oman to the Northeast. The principle natural resources of Yemen include oil and natural gas.
The Yemini Crisis began with the 2011-2012 revolution against President Ali Abdullah Saleh who had ruled Yemen for over 3 decades.
A destabilized government led to a civil war and a civil war led to famine which led to a humanitarian crisis that is considered the worst in the world.
On the 7th of November, I read the following Facebook Post by one of my former students who is a Muslim man living in the United States.
Yemen is a predominantly Muslim country surrounded by predominantly Muslim countries (some of the richest in the world). The people of Yemen are currently being starved to death by their ‘brothers and sisters’ (other muslims) and while they’re starving their neighbors/ brothers and sisters are killing them .. let that sink in. The middle east holds some of the most sacred places of worship where muslims from around the world spend their life savings (in some cases) to perform a pilgrimage. Since Islam is about peace, giving back and doing the right thing then how are we as muslims allowing this to happen?
Making hajj a very important pillar of Islam but did you know in 2014 Saudi Arabia profited $18.6 billion dollars from hajj and it has only been increasing since then? We’re funding this war, were financially enabling them to kill.
Like I said hajj is important but where will we draw the line to say.. no maybe humanity is more important, maybe the lives of other human beings regardless of their religion, just maybe that’s a bit more important…smh
