Yemeni-Americans called for an end to the US-Saudi war on their home, at a protest outside the United Nations General Assembly. Ben Norton reports
Story Transcript
ABDULWALI: We came here to protest against the war in Yemen, for saving the children. Today, as we know, the United Nations have a meeting about Yemen, a special — the whole day is specially about Yemen, about the humanitarian issue, about women, about food.
And we came here to send a message to the U.N. that, first of all, we are really tired of meeting. We need action. Action is really important. The people in Yemen are starving, and they cannot wait. They start eating leaves from the trees. They have nothing to eat anymore. We’re in famine.
11 million kids in Yemen need help. 20 million is under the poverty, in starvation. They don’t have, they don’t even know what they’re going to eat tomorrow. They’re already digging their graves with their own hands.
So we have to understand that urgency — the issue in Yemen is life or death. People are dying every single day. We have thousands of kids that have no food, thousands of kids that have no money. Thousands of kids have no shelter.
And the air strikes. We are controlled by Saudi Arabia. Yemen port, seaport, airport, every entrance in Yemen is controlled by Saudi Arabia. So in order for us to have food, we have to take permit from Saudi Arabia. This is first of all. Second of all, the people have no jobs, have no money, have no aid. We’re under the siege.
Without the United States, without the permit of the United States, we would have no war. The permit of the war was from Obama administration, for a week or two weeks [at first], for the good relationship that United States had with Saudi Arabia.
Now we have United States, I mean, Saudi Arabia, have a permit not for two weeks; have a permit to destroy Yemen for the $500 billion that Trump got. And he say, we have more jobs in the United States, and we have more death in Yemen to replace those jobs.
So basically, the 40,000 jobs he was claiming, that we have more than 40,000 jobs in the United States, and we have 40,000 people killed in Yemen. So basically I’m eating my cousin’s blood in Yemen. Because I have a job over here, and making a little more money. And my cousin died over there.
So what economy President Trump he says he gives us? Killing people overseas. Putting the guns to their heads, and blaming them, and take their money and sell the Yemeni people.
And 50 years from now, nobody cares about the oil. The United States have enough oil. The United States will now, they want money. They paid a lot of money back in the day for the oil. Now they want to take their money back. But at the cost of what, at the expense of what? At the expense of the Yemeni people.
MOATAZ: I’m here, I’m here because I want to stop the war, stop all the wars, because this war has been too long. I want to stop the wars of Yemen because it has been too long until it started. People dying, kids dying, even 30,000 Muslims dying.
I did this for five years, and then when the Congressman saw me doing this, he gave me an ID and told that me I’m the ambassador to Yemen of the kids.
There is my brother, he’s married, he’s in Yemen. It’s been hard for them without no food, killing kids, bombing them. Yeah, like a week ago they threw the bomb on the school when they were praying, and then all the kids were bleeding. And there was this kid, he died in Yemen, his dad died in Yemen, and his child said he wouldn’t leave him.
Everything is literally about money. Saudia paid Trump over a million dollars just to stop the war. But everything is literally about money.
Money does not matter, guys. Even how long it takes to stop the war, no matter what, even if it’s 20 years, 10 years, 50 years, we’ll still keep going to stop — we’ll still keep trying. Never stop until the war stops.
BEN NORTON: If you could tell anything to Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman, what would you say?
MOATAZ: I would say to stop the war. And I would say they might have the power to stop the war, but we also have it, too.
SPEAKER: To all the world, we are here to say stop the war in Yemen. Stop killing children in Yemen. Everything is destroyed by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Since the war start in Yemen, there is no oil, they destroyed hospitals and schools and universities and streets, all, all around Yemen.
And they are in Aden, and also in southern Yemen. They destroyed everything. They said they are there to help Yemenis, but they are not. They are just destroying our country.
Peace, peace, peace, just we need peace. Stop bombing Yemenis, and we’ll discuss that issue. If we have any problem, we have to sit together and build our country.
Stop killing children, Saudi Arabia. Stop killing and bombing in Yemen.
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