March 1 Day of Action for Yemen

Over breakfast this morning I read that Wednesday, March 1 is a day of action to mark the anniversary of the war in Yemen — eight years — and that every 75 seconds a child dies of starvation in that country. This is an astounding statistic, and even if it’s an over-estimate (say a kid dies only every three minutes) it’s just horrifying. Especially that this has been going on so long and that in the United States there has been so little attention paid to our involvement in the conflict. This is a civil war and while it may be easiest to ignore such conflicts elsewhere, the fact remains that Saudi Arabia has received massive support from the U.S. in order to conduct its bombing of civilians and blockade of humanitarian aid.

Coincidentally, as I’m writing this, I receive an email from my representative in Congress, U.S. Rep. James McGovern, with the subject line “Nothing is more outrageous — and preventable — than child hunger [petition].” The petition urges Congress to fund universal school meals. I couldn’t agree more. There is plenty of money available for such a simple action to reduce child hunger in this country. As a volunteer at two local food distribution sites, I get to see firsthand both how much unsold food is available to give away to those in need, and how many people are being helped by these facilities. But as for helping those kids far away in Yemen, the U.S. could do that, too, if our foreign policy supported humanitarian aid over funding criminal war mongering regimes like Saudi Arabia. Here is information on the March 1 Day of Action: https://every75seconds.org/. The petition on school meals can be found on ActionNetwork.org.

Laura J. Kaye

Northfield