with inexpensive medication.

The UN’s dire warning regarding the situation in Yemen, undoubtedly the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, comes just as the Saudi-led coalition, with support from the United States and the United Kingdom, is preparing for an assault on the key Yemeni port of Hodeidah. On Monday, a coalition spokesman announced that its forces were within 20 km from the Houthi-held port, which has long been a key coalition target. The UN and other groups have long warned that any assault on Hodeidah would drastically worsen the crisis and greatly increase the number of Yemenis facing starvation.

According to Reuters, tens of thousands of Yemenis have been fleeing the port city in recent days, as fighting in the area intensifies. It remains unclear exactly when coalition forceswill attempt to take the city and whether such an operation has been approved by its Western backers, such as the United States, which has continued to supply the coalition with arms and munitions despite its well-documented tendency to target civilian infrastructure.

Beyond the blockade: targeting food production and waging total war

A man looks at cows killed by a Saudi airstrike on a dairy farm in Bajil in Yemen’s western province January 2, 2016. Abduljabbar Zeyad | Reuters

While the blame for the brunt of the crisis has been placed on the coalition’s blockade on the imports of food, fuel and medicine, the coalition has also deliberately targeted the country’s food production and distribution infrastructure. In just the first year of the conflict, the coalition bombed over 350 farms, markets,