 everybody. We are just getting started and going live right now for everybody that's joining us as an attendee. You can type questions in the chat or in the Q&A and we will get to them. So we are just one minute before the hour, but we want to be welcoming people who are already coming on. My name is Medea Benjamin with Code Pink and you also just heard from Ariel Gold and we are very delighted that we have a special guest with us on a very unfortunate anniversary marking the end of five years of war in Yemen. We want to mark that anniversary because when the crown prince of Saudi Arabia started getting involved in the war in Yemen, he said that this would be over in just a couple of weeks and here we are five years later. So our guest today with us is Aisha Jumal and she is a Yemeni-American. She's the president of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. She has over 30 years of experience in public health, something that is important today more than ever. She has a PhD in epidemiology and unlike many people in the healthcare field, Aisha is also very involved in the politics and I know you for quite a while now having worked closely on issues related to U.S. policy in Yemen, lobbying Congress, trying to get Congress to stop the Trump administration from supporting the Saudis and their bombing of Yemen, something that we should say actually started under the Obama administration. So thank you so much Aisha for joining us and if you could start out telling us a little bit more about yourself and your organization. Thank you, Medea, for inviting me and thank you for everyone who are joining this call today. As you said, I was born and raised in Yemen and I came to the US for my university and college and graduate work. I've been very interested in public health from the very beginning and so have my PhD in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina and my master's in public health from Emory University. I started Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation because of the war on Yemen. People calling it a civil war and I strongly disagree with that because when you have Saudi Arabia and 17 other countries that are actively fighting in Yemen in addition to countries like the US and the UK and France and everybody else who is providing them the weapons for the war, it's not a civil war. It's actually an aggression on the population of Yemen led by the Saudis. So what they call a Saudi-led coalition, it is a Saudi-led attack and aggression on the people of Yemen. Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation as I said was established to provide relief in Yemen. In addition to the daily bombing since day one which is March 26th 2015, the Saudis also imposed a blockade on Yemen so nothing can get in or out of Yemen without Saudi approval. For me to go to Yemen, I have to submit my name to the Saudis to get approval to get into my home country. This is how ridiculous this whole thing is. So we've been providing relief work to inaccessible areas. A lot of the relief agencies in Yemen cannot reach either places that are far away because of the geography in Yemen. Yemen has the highest mountains in the Middle East. A lot of people don't realize that and Yemeni live at the very top of these mountains and so they are small settlements, eight international aid organizations cannot get to these settlements because it's too expensive and they need to have security to get to these places. We work in these places. We also work in places that are bordering Saudi Arabia where there is daily bombing for five years and tomorrow would be the sixth year. We have access to all over Yemen because we work with volunteers from the communities where we deliver aid. Please visit our website because we actually do quite a bit of work in Yemen, including supporting orphans. We have over 450 orphans that we support with monthly allowance and we also have a lot of other projects. Of interest is we also got funding from the Canadians to do a water purification project for Yemen and we're very excited about that and also welcome trust in England are supporting us to do some color work as well. So we're very happy with all the work that we're doing in Yemen. I also want to say here that we're all volunteers. So the work that we do for Yemen Relief in the U.S. every single person is a volunteer and in Yemen everybody who's working with us is a volunteer. We do have two people whom we pay and those are people who do our finances and they are consultants and we pay them by the hour. Wow a very lean organization that does fantastic work so thank you for that. If we could go back to the origins of this crisis it's interesting that you don't call it a civil war. Do you think it started out as a civil war and for those who haven't been following this why did the Houthis rise up in the beginning? So there have been multiple civil wars in Yemen and the Houthis have had problems with the central government for a long time and started in 2014 and guess why the main reason they had a conflict with the central government in 2004 that is because they objected to the invasion of Iraq by U.S. forces. So this goes back to them saying Yemen should not have been part supporting the U.S. invasion that was based on a lie as we all know now. There were no fighting when people say civil war even when the Houthi took Sana'a over in 2014 there was really no fighting they took they just entered Sana'a and there was no fighting. So even that to call that civil war that's actually not try to muddy the water when they call it that civil war. They did go I think after they took over Sana'a there were negotiations there was a UN envoy his name was Jamal bin Omar and he was negotiating with all the Yemeni parties to the conflict to establish a unity government on March 24 or 23 of 2015 he announced and there is an article by the Wall Street Journal on this he announced that the Yemeni have reached an agreement and there is going to be a unity government established on that night where that he made announcement the Saudi government invited him to go to Riyadh within two days they started bombing Yemen. So there was no interest for the Saudis for them that the Yemeni reach an agreement and the fact that they bombed two days after the agreement also indicates that they were planning this ahead even of the Yemeni's reaching an agreement this didn't happen overnight. One thing I want to say to my American fellow citizen is that war on Yemen was announced from Washington DC it was not announced from Riyadh. So this also was the time that King Salman in Saudi Arabia gave the power to his son Mohammed bin Salman to run the military and so this was his his venture into Yemen and do you think that he ever thought that this would still be going on five years later? Oh I don't think anybody including me that it was going to go this long I remember watching the news and the Saudis and the Emirates together because they were the lead on this saying two weeks to a maximum of two months and this would be over. Everybody thought that I also want to point to the fact that the German intelligence actually in 2015 published a report calling Mohammed bin Salman a destabilizing person for the Middle East. German intelligence are not normally a group that we hear a lot about and when the only reason they published that report is because they really felt there is a danger that the Middle East is going to spiral into more violence with the rise of Mohammed bin Salman. And then on the part of the Houthis it has been portrayed oftentimes in the US press that they are really being organized, mobilized, furnished by Iran. What is what was the relationship between the Houthis and Iran in the beginning of this and what is the relationship today? Well I would say that I would go to President Obama's actually he made two interviews with the New York Times in which he very specifically said that there was no relationship or strong relationship between the Houthis and Iran. So if the president of the US who authorized the US participation in the slaughter of the Yemeni people he himself said there was no relationship between Iran and the Houthis I'll take that because I actually believe that. There was an effort to portray this the narrative that the Houthis are fighting Iran in Yemen. It's a narrative that is very important in the PR environment because unfortunately a lot of people in the US view Iran as an enemy and if we are fighting Iran in Yemen then a lot of people will think it's okay. I actually think it's a PR narrative to let the American people not be outraged by what's going on in Yemen and over time actually the relationship I would say strengthened rather than if it was non-existent it strengthened and if we go back to the brother of the current you know leader of the Houthis he actually did not like the Iranians and one of the words that they had with Ali Abdullah Salih who was the president of Yemen the Iranians sent money to his party without his knowledge and people in his party took it he actually asked them to send the money back to Iran because he did not want any money from Iran. So if you just want to say this also is mentioned by an article by Robert Worth in the New York Times for people who are interested in references for what I'm saying. Yes I remember that article a very very good one but as you said as time goes by it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy because then Iran does become involved because the Houthis are looking for allies they're looking for weapons and so would you say that if the if Iran is not that big an influence among the Houthis then why are the Saudis so determined to continue this struggle? The Saudis have I think there were there are two parts to this Mohammed bin Salman when he became the minister of defense he thought this was going to be an easy win and this was going to propel him to be the next king because at that point in time 2015 he was second in line to his cousin Mohammed bin Nayib so he thought if he became a national hero then he would became the you know the king immediately after his father of course that didn't pan through and now it's very challenging for him to get out of war that he started where he thought he's going to win in two months and it's five years and militarily everybody knows including the US government that this is not something that anybody is going to win militarily so according to a lot of the people who are you know trained in policy and politics keep saying we need to find a face saving way for Mohammed bin Salman to get out of this and I think the only group that he would listen to is the US administration so the US administration needs to come up with a way for him to get out of this because he definitely now knows he cannot win it so as wars rage on there are end up almost always being sort of no good sides there have been reports about human rights violations and atrocities committed by the Houthis and of course we know that the Saudi bombing has been so destructive of the infrastructure hospitals clinics all of those things can you I don't know that you want to weigh more than the one over the other but can you talk a little bit about the different parties and the level of destruction yes actually it's a war and like you said in wars there is no no good side but I would also refer people to the Yemen data project that shows that 70 percent of the civilian deaths and over 70 percent of the destruction in Yemen is done by the Saudi left coalition so they're not equal and in terms of the corruption or at least in terms of what's available in Yemen because of the blockade my point and I've tried to communicate this to multiple people is Yemen is under a blockade only 20 percent of what needs gets into Yemen then these commodities become very precious and as they become very precious then you are now giving power to those inside to monopolize it if there is no blockade if everything is in is available in Yemen we would not need to worry about the Houthis monopolizing or insisting that they get some of what's get into the country so I think we need to look at root causes rather than as symptoms it's very similar to the coronavirus we can't just look at the symptoms and try to deal with it we need to look at the root cause and the root cause is infection and people are being asked to stay home so there is no infection and in Yemen people are forgetting that and they're also looking at the symptoms and they're not looking at the root cause which is what is getting into Yemen I tried to send reagents for the coronavirus that were donated by the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin I could not get them into Yemen because the Saudis would not allow them to get into Yemen and I was trying to use you know resources that are available and you know verify to get them into Yemen so we need to look at root causes and the root cause if anything is going on in Yemen is the US supported Saudi war and blockade on Yemen there was ever a time to end that blockade in war now during this pandemic would be that time I agree I actually am scared to death I actually was shaking the other day I was crying because knowing what this outbreak can do in Yemen is frightening to me it's it's frightening because I know they've been dealing with four outbreaks to date we have a cholera outbreak that's been raging in Yemen since 2016 we have over two million cases suspected cases by the end of 2019 and this is something that can be controlled we know where the control measures are this is not as infectious as as COVID-19 we also have a deferia outbreak in Yemen going on right now and Yemen has not had a deferia outbreak since 1980 believe that and then we also have an H1N1 outbreak in Yemen that was extremely severe this year I also had to get donation of reagents for them again from the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin luckily we were able to get it in and then they also have a dengue with chikagonia outbreak that has ravaged the population what people don't realize these are all diseases these are diseases where we know how to control and Yemen has not been able to control them for three years now so and the impact of also other infectious diseases because medicine is not allowed to prevent they you know when we talk about COVID we say elderly and those who are immunocompromised I would say today as epidemiologists as a professional public health about 80% of the Yemeni population have an immune system that's compromised we have at least 14 million people who are severely malnourished and at risk of famine these people immune system is and that's represents 50% of the Yemeni population these people that immune system is is compromised those who have dengue those who have chikagonia those have H1N1 those who have deferia all these people have immunosuppression so if we say 80% of the Yemeni population are immunocompromised today because of the blockade on the war these are the people that we are more likely to die if coronavirus is in Yemen add to that that we have a health system that is destroyed so according to the last estimate from WHO 50% of the Yemeni population do not have access to healthcare 50% and then the other 50% that do have access to healthcare they have an access to a very compromised destroyed healthcare we have a lot of the physicians who have not been receiving salary since 2016 when the national bank was moved out of Sara a lot of physicians have left Yemen and we have equipment these medical facilities have not been updated since 2015 if they have a problem with them a breakdown they don't have the ability to fix it because they need to import the parts and they have not been able to import the parts or import new equipments for that matter so we're talking about a system that you know if I take New York as an example and we say okay we're going to you know 50% of the population in New York the poor which is usually the case going to be not we don't have any services for that we're going to accept that okay the other 50% of the population that we have something working for them let's assume now we they don't have face masks I'm getting requests for face masks the face masks that were in the pharmacies I called the pharmacist in the other day in Hadramout he told me Saudis bought the face masks that were in Yemen to use them in Saudi Arabia because they pay more so they depleted Yemen even of what was available so if we go to the New York example so they don't have you know I've been here in Como you know bleeding they ventilators Yemen doesn't have ventilators they don't have masks Yemen doesn't have masks Yemen doesn't have the even the reagents to test the reagents we were able to send to Yemen it's for 500 people the Saudis also now are opening the more people to go into Yemen Yemenis who are outside Yemen they overwhelmed the system that's in place that was to look into people who are coming and test them if they were expecting 200 a day because that was what was allowed for the last five years and now they're allowing thousands to come in a day people are being put in schools now because that's a place where they can put them until they test them but they cannot test them and so that if any if I you know I'm I'm just really I'm scared I'm scared because I think we're gonna have a term genocide comes to mind this is when it would come to mind because we're gonna have millions of people if they're infected there is no one no one in Yemen today who can help them because the the system cannot cannot do anything about it I just have a call this morning in one of the where they're holding people who are coming from travel to at least you know provide them with cleaning uh agents that so they clean their premise it's actually the university because they stop universities and schools so they are putting people at the university and now this university has become overcrowded they're moving some of them to a school so I'm trying to say just at least let us provide you with equipment you know with chemicals with Clorax with whatever it is so we can clean the environment where you are at a lot of these people you know if they were working in Saudi Arabia and they've been deported because they don't have a job don't have money so we're going to try and at least provide them daily meals the the Yemeni government today the the one who's providing services which is the one in Sana'a because the one in Riyadh they're just staying in hotels right now in Riyadh they're not doing services they cannot cope with what's going on right now if the US if the US the richest country in the world today we have Como pleading for help think about if Como has 10% of what he needs or 5% of what he needs you're talking about the governor of New York yes yes the governor because you know if if the rich I mean New York is one of the very well-to-do states the economy is very well uh think if he's calling for help if he's saying I don't have enough ventilators I don't have enough you know even the US people are saying they don't have enough masks for the health staff I mean take that and reduce it by 90% and then you have an 80% immunocompromised population what are we preparing Yemen for well and then you have Saudi Arabia on the border that does already have hundreds of people infected is that the case oh yes actually I think they are at least from the news uh Egypt said 15 of the new cases came from Saudi Arabia Pakistan said new new cases came from Saudi Arabia uh India said cases came from Saudi Arabia so we have a lot of countries where the positive cases from Saudi Arabia and we have now according to yesterday's news about 1,050 people Yemeni who were in Saudi Arabia for Umrah which is the Lesser Hajj who they want to bring to Yemen how are we going to test these people and right now news is that Saudi Arabia has close to 750 cases that was as of yesterday and the World Health Organization says that the outbreak reaching Yemen is imminent yes and they use the world that the number would be explosive in Yemen and the reason they say that because we are not able to test I mean they're testing people with symptoms but as we know there are people who are going to come from the outside they're healthier than those who are in Yemen um and you know if they're silent spreaders meaning they don't have symptoms we're not testing them so we're going to have an explosive number of cases similar to what was happening in Italy so Aisha you already had a very uh as you were saying a very impoverished uh population uh that uh has been dependent on foreign aid is that foreign aid still able to come in with the they closed off the flights because of the fear of coronavirus or how is that affecting the ability to get the aid in so and and that's something that I am thank you for asking because people think aid is enough there is no aid in the world that can support 29 million people they need to open commercial imports to Yemen uh yes aid is able to come when they close was closed the airport in Sana'a and even now in Adan two people who were international aid workers so the international aid workers could travel to Sana'a airport while I as a Yemeni cannot travel to Sana'a airport because that's the laws of the Saudis the last airplane that came they tested the people on the plane and there was one positive case so like any country with very responsive program they decided they're going to stop the transport of people international aid workers into Yemen for two weeks because they don't want someone to come in who's infected and infect the population and and that makes sense but they have not stopped aid from coming in so I don't understand Naisha if it's the Houthis who in charge of Sana'a how can the Saudis control the airport because the only flights that are allowed by Saudi to fly in Sana'a can get into Sana'a and how do they control that from Jordan the flights can come from Jordan and the Saudis approve it before it can fly to Sana'a and approve what gets on it before it gets to Sana'a so if you may want to go to Yemen and we you know you have to submit your name to the Saudi any health any aid worker they need to submit their names to the Saudis to approve them to get on that flight anything that gets on that flight that goes to Sana'a has to be approved by the by the Saudis so they are in control of Sana'a airport let's and no like for example the you know when they found cases Qatar decided they're going to you know support them and they gave them uh 15 million dollars so if Qatar for example want to fly in to Sana'a airport and provide equipment you know the agents or they can't they need to get approval from the Saudis and the Saudis are not approving any flights except that specific flight that gets into Sana'a so can you talk about the critical port of Hudaida there's been a lot of fighting around there and jockeying for control where does that stand now so the port of Hudaida is the port that is the largest in Yemen and since Yemen imports 90% of its needs whether it's medicine or essential goods or food that is the main port that is used to bring goods into Yemen the other ports are smaller and cannot support the the entire Yemeni population but in the beginning of the war under the Obama administration they everybody all agencies and the war factions decided that the Hudaida port is going to be off-limit what they call in wars a red line nobody's going to try and attack it so because that's the only place where goods can come through into Yemen even that no ship can dock into into that port that's our the prior approval and they can hold steps up to 83 days or more before they're allowed to dock into Yemen into that port so the and unfortunately in 2016 the Emiratis decided that they want to take control of the port and they started an offense in 2016 there've been multiple war you know fighting in in the area but again the international community came back again and they decided to you know halt the fighting in Hudaida so there are the fighting has halted but there are skirmishes from time to time but again you know it's like having your door you control who gets into your home but then you have you know the outside they decide who gets into to knock at your door that's what's happening in Yemen the Saudis are the people who decide whom gets into Yemen and going back to the political situation for a minute the Emirates Emiratis were involved and had troops on the ground did they all leave that's what we've been hearing that the Emiratis have decided to leave and that they took all the soldiers the Emirati soldiers with them but we also have to remember that the Emiratis have also used a lot of mercenaries especially from South America and South Africa to the point that the South American governments were very upset because these were the elite forces that were trained by the US government to fight crimes and especially drug crimes in South America but the Emiratis were giving them a lot more money and they were depleting these countries out of these fighters in addition to that the Emiratis also have trained loyalists to them and according to them there are about 200 000 people who have been trained by the Emiratis these are Yemeni that are supported by the Emiratis and apparently I haven't seen numbers they are paid also by the Emiratis so they have people that they have left behind to make sure that they're interested in Yemen and the Emiratis interested in Yemen is ports and haven't they been supporting the separatists in the south yes and that's part of the contingents of 200 000 people they've trained they are also supported that's one of them the separatists in the south is one of the groups that they are supporting the Emiratis are interested in Aden ports Aden port actually is a natural port compared you know if you compare it to the port in Dubai that's actually more challenging to get into it for ships but they have initially under the Salih government rented Aden port for a hundred years and they said they were going to you know develop it and make it active but in those times they actually made sure that it was never active and then during the 2011 spring in Yemen the youth insisted that that port and the agreement with the Emiratis be nullified and it was nullified so they found another way to come and make sure that the Aden port is closed uh-huh and it has also been said that the fighting between the Houthis and the Saudis has left a vacuum in certain areas that al-Qaeda and ISIS have taken advantage of and grown is that true well actually that is that's a positive statement yes that is actually true if you look at maps that are created whether it's by crisis group or by international groups that track ISIS and al-Qaeda they you will see that they are not in the Houthi areas because they are you know mortal enemies to the Houthis and the Houthis fought them and defeated them in many places and got them out of many areas that they control and you will find that the Saudi Emirati the internationally recognized government areas that those are the areas where the ISIS and al-Qaeda are and there were instances and CNN reported that and BBC also reported that that in some areas they are fighting with the Emiratis as well so here you have the Saudis and their coalition partners fighting the Houthis who are aligned with Iran you have the the separatists who are supporting by the Emiratis you have al-Qaeda and ISIS how will there ever be peace in Yemen and what is the status of the different peace talks that have happened yeah I think you know I can't coming from Yemen and knowing that Yemen had survived for thousands of years I think and also being a tribal culture they know how to you know make peace within themselves I think the the culture is has learned from thousands of years of how you come together how you negotiate peace and how you you know work together despite many differences I think if the Yemeni are left alone they will be able to sit down and work a peace agreement I think just having the Saudi you know and many people not me including those who are with the internationally recognized government would say that the internationally recognized government is hostage in in Saudi Arabia the president of Yemen the internationally recognized government cannot even travel to Yemen when he tried he his plane wasn't allowed to land in Adam that's that's how much control he has over the areas that are under the Saudi Emirati control so I think if the Saudis leave the Yemeni alone I think the Yemenis will reach an agreement the Ansar Allah or the Houthis have multiple times said that they are ready for peace they have for you know I think the six weeks or eight weeks decided that they're not going to be you know targeting anyone hoping that there is a hand is going to be you know extended to them so there will be peace yesterday Martin Griffith talked to the government in Sana'a again from the UN Martin Griffithi is the UN envoy to Yemen and the Sana'a government is again extending its hand to peace but this time they're saying it has to come from the Saudis they're not going to count on the Yemeni the Saudis because they those don't have controls and I tend to agree with that so that should move us then to look at the U.S. role and if you could talk a little bit about what the U.S. and some other western countries have been doing as far as supporting the Saudis and what what is the situation in Congress versus the White House? So as you said earlier unfortunately this war was announced it was supported by President Obama it was announced as I said from Washington DC so both governments whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans have supported the Saudis as far as the President Obama the at least the writings so far has said that he wanted the Saudis to buy in into the Iran agreement and that's why he supported the Saudis and we all know where the Iran agreement's in today and even with that I actually think it's horrible that he thinks he can sacrifice the people of Yemen so he can have an agreement for Iran that's just totally unacceptable with President Trump he's actually more honest to be in my mind he said what's important to him is selling arms and as long as our Saudis are supporting the U.S. economy with arm sales he's okay with it and we all remember him with the big boards in his hands next to Mohammed bin Salman you know gloating about you know how much the Saudis are spending in arms and how much money that is bringing to the U.S. government but again I mean no matter how much the Saudis are buying look at where we are today with the coronavirus government had to cough up you know two to three trillion dollars to support the economy and support people that just tells me we really did not need the money from the Saudis for this war that that's nothing that's peanuts compared to what we are able to use our own money without you know using blood money to support our economy I think I hope that the U.S. president now understands this in terms of Congress and the Senate we've had much better luck with a democratic House of Representatives and passing laws that says the U.S. should not support the war the Saudi war on Yemen unfortunately the Senate controlled by Mitch McConnell has been not just against anything that's good for international communities like Yemen he's also been not good for the American public as well we did however have two bills that passed the Senate that supported ending the U.S. support for the Saudi but the White House you know as we all know vetoed those I think in the midst of a coronavirus outbreak that's pandemic that's affecting everyone that ICRC actually tweeted that said hey world if you feel alone if you feel you cannot travel your you know your airports are closed your cities are closed this is how Yemenis have felt for five years I hope that the international community now come together we have to fight this pandemic together this is not something that one country can say hey I won and I'm going to close my borders and this virus is not going to come we have to fight this virus everywhere for the world to feel safe and that's the community we live in today I hope that this care is going to make us look inside and reflect and realize that for humanity survive we really need to work together well that's beautiful thank you and before we open it up to questions from our viewers maybe Arielle since you've done so much of this work with Code Pink you could tell you could add to what why Aisha has said about the work in Congress and any other work you think that people ought to know about and can maybe support us on. Sure so the main work taking place in Congress right now is to invoke the war powers resolution and we have worked extensively on this in regard to the Saudi-led war in Yemen in US participation invoking the war powers resolution says that without congressional authorization the president does not have the right to take the US into war and so if we successfully get this invoked then US participation or a large part of the US participation in the war in Yemen would cease now we have gotten it through both chambers of Congress previously but Trump has vetoed it interestingly this has now been extended to Iran as well because of the US incitement against Iran and brought us the brink of war so Congress has also been working on invoking the war powers resolution to prevent war with Iran which would also help bolster the efforts to end the war in Yemen we have a number of things right now as well taking place outside of Congress so the G20 summit is coming up for anybody who isn't aware of what the G20 is it's composed of 19 countries in the European Union who together represent two-thirds of the world's population and 80 percent of the world's trade the G20 meets every year to discuss economic issues and ways to increase cooperation and the year that what's been picked for 2020 for the location of the G20 is Saudi Arabia so we at Code Pink have initially we were working extensively on getting countries to boycott Saudi or the G20 in Saudi Arabia Amnesty International for example has said that they will not attend because of Saudis human rights abuses including the war in Yemen now with the corona pandemic coming into the picture this has changed things somewhat Saudi Arabia is convening a conversation this week of 20 countries a virtual meeting to talk about the corona virus pandemic and while it's important for world leaders to come together and talk about this massive cross-border crisis you know we've been talking about about the importance of working together as countries the most urgent thing that Saudi Arabia do right now to address the corona virus crisis is to immediately end the war in Yemen and so we have an action up and we are appealing to the U.S. the Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. which is Princess Rima Bint Badar al Saud to end the war in Yemen for the sake of the corona virus crisis you know as you've been saying this is a catastrophe that is that is imminently on the borders and either way this catastrophe is going to go in but at the very least we want to try to mitigate any parts of it that we can and I want to encourage people who are watching and have joined us to go to codepink.org slash COVID-19 Yemen and I'm going to put that link in the chat box and it's also on the Facebook page below the video in the comments and let's see if we can begin to take some questions as well. Early on we had a question asking if you believe that the Saudi government is hoping for corona virus to crash through Yemen horrifically and that being a way for them to win the war. You know despite my anger at what the Saudis are doing in Yemen I cannot think that any human being no matter how mean they are or evil that they wish for that to happen. I cannot contemplate or think that anyone would wish for this to happen. I would just add there well they are very evil looking at the refugee but I don't think it would be helpful to them because we know that this virus doesn't know borders and if they're trying to control it in Saudi Arabia it would not help to have it spreading in Yemen and as you know there's a lot of people that try to go back and forth in that border but the other thing is to recognize that Saudi Arabia is going through another crisis of its own making and that is the oil price when it started this oil war with Russia and so it is losing hundreds of billions of dollars in with the crash in the price of oil and is not able to muster up the kind of resources that it needs and also with this responsibility that it now has as the host of the G20 I think there is a way that other countries can use this to put pressure on the Saudis around peace talks maybe I'm just being too optimistic but I wonder you know asking you Aisha who has seen these peace talks come and go and and fail and fail do you think there is more of an opening now? You know when there was when the US Congress was looking into the NDAA which is the National Defense Authorization Act and there was some language in it about you know stopping US support for the Saudi war the Saudis were actually very open at that point in time into negotiation with the Houthis they were negotiation both in Oman and Muscat and also even in Saudi Arabia however that as you know and I know didn't pass and they took the language of Yemen out and since then the Saudi have really not shown a very serious effort to go back to the negotiating table I do hope that I said that this scare I actually suspect that there are a lot more cases in Saudi Arabia than Saudi Arabia is reporting they are very good at hiding data they never like to share information especially if it's something like this so again that people with cool heads people with with hearts realize that really we need to come together there is a call from the UN to end all wars this is not the time for it so I hope that the US takes the lead on this as well and in addition to the UK and all the five permanent members of the UN because they really have power in terms of a lot of the wars that are going on there and everywhere to say you know we're not going to support you this war has to these all these wars up and so I'm hopeful because I'm always positive and I actually think the majority of people in the world are actually wonderful and have good hearts I think unfortunately we have very few who have the power and they're the one who do it for everyone you're a mute sorry about that so we have a number of people that are asking if they do want to donate where you would recommend them donate to I know you spoke about the challenges of getting the aid in regardless but people do want to know how they can help financially okay I'm putting in our organization I hope people can consider donating to Yemen Foundation.org as I said 100% of the donations that people give to us they go directly to services in Yemen since even the people who work with us in Yemen are all volunteers we do pay them for transportation so if we're working inside of for example and we need to have to we buy also locally so we don't ship from one place to another first of all roads in Yemen are awful and a lot of the bridges between cities have been destroyed by airstrikes but also fuel is extremely expensive in Yemen so we try to buy locally and we also local merchants so in one area where we were distributing food the farmer had lots of eggs so we bought eggs from him and distributed to those who need in other places lentils was quite abundant and we bought lentils so whatever people and it cost us $30 to provide a basket of food for a family of six that sustains them for one month what that contains is 25 kilograms of flour a wheat 10 kilograms of rice four liters of oil we also buy as I said lentils or whatever is available in the markets as a source of protein or eggs and we also buy powdered milk and giving Ramadan we also which is coming next month we buy dates for families so and this is you know we actually are very good at negotiating best prices because we also get companies that we buy from to donate to us as well because they know that we are doing this at the minimum cost so any donations will be very grateful for that and as I said we reach areas that nobody else can reach well we are nearing the top of the hour and at the end of this we do have one more question somebody would like to know if this war continues if it remains prolonged do you think it will result in more attacks such as the one that took place on the Saudi Aramco facility um I guess I think so the if the Saudis are smart I think they will try to end the war and the reason I say that is in the past when they attacked Yemen it was all a surprise nobody expected this to happen uh the Houthis or the government in Sana'a I don't like to say the Houthis because they're not the only one fighting the Saudis it's actually a coalition of a lot of Yemenis and I would say probably about 80 percent of the Yemeni are the government of Sana'a today so it's the government of Sana'a in meanwhile during the five year of war have developed capabilities to respond to the Saudis so one of the things they were always able to come in and bomb anytime they want and not fear any fire to their planes in the last month they the Yemenis have developed a way to target their flights so multiple times they came in information to bomb and they you know I'm not a military expert but basically they were fired on and they had to leave without bombing anything in Yemen so the capabilities within Yemen have gotten much much better and they definitely can target Saudi Arabia and they have been targeting airports that you know close to the border in Yemen I think quite often and a lot of the flights to these airports have not been used or you know they've had to be to go somewhere else so the capabilities within Yemen had improved quite a bit since the war started and I think when I was in Yemen this summer I was there June and July the mood in Yemen is much better than the year before because there is a sense of defiance and I think the sense of defiance came in because people realize we've survived the worst and we don't have anything else to lose and so the enemy has more to lose at this point in time time so I do hope that all these factors are considered by the Saudis in terms of for the Yemenis they they actually do think there is nothing else to lose and yet the Saudis have a lot to lose at this point in time so for everybody's sake they need to stop yeah at this moment in time we all have so much to lose all over the world and I want to say how enriching this discussion has been Aisha you have a wealth of information as well as a beautiful heart and it's quite extraordinary to have somebody with your background and expertise in epidemiology I know you had a whole bunch of slides you wanted to show us that we'll save for another day but to have your knowledge and the work that you've been doing in Yemen and then the political will to get involved at the level of Washington politics it's all quite unique and we thank you so much for joining us and I was going to close out by saying some of the words of the Secretary General but Ariel did you want to say anything before we go I would just like to again direct people to the latest action that we're asking people to take and that's at code pink dot org slash COVID-19 Yemen so the Secretary General is not known for making a lot of very eloquent pronouncements but what he did was quite extraordinary and he said that the fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war I think that's quite an extraordinary statement he also said that we have to put armed conflict in lockdown and and the sickness of war and work together to fight this disease that is ravaging our world so on that note once again thank you Aisha thank you for those who have been watching and let's work together to put armed conflict on lockdown and stop the sickness of war thank you everyone for thank you everyone for joining us