Education, health, infrastructure top UAE aid efforts in Yemen in August

The UAE leadership has reinforced its humanitarian aid and relief programmes in Yemen with a focus on education, health and infrastructure development in the month of August. It strives to ensure that Yemeni civilians receive the necessary aid to alleviate their suffering, and has spared no effort in their humanitarian response in Yemen since the outbreak of the crisis.

Ninety Yemeni civilians, who sustained injuries as a result of Houthi violations, arrived in India last month to receive necessary medical treatment as part of an Emirates Red Crescent, ERC, humanitarian initiative announced by the UAE leadership.

Of the various initiatives that the nation has undertaken to establish stability and security in Yemen, the UAE donated 15 vehicles to security departments across Yemeni governorates during August.

The ‘Zayed’s Legacy for the Yemeni People’ campaign was also launched in August, as part of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan's keenness to support and help the brotherly people of Yemen. The campaign was a unique philanthropic gesture to assist families of martyrs and the wounded, for sacrifices in their endeavours defending their land.

The campaign ensured that Yemeni families were provided with various kinds of support including Eid clothing, gifts for children, food baskets, sacrificial meat and cash, along with vouchers to purchase necessities in preparation for Eid al-Adha festivities. The ‘Zayed’s Legacy for the Yemeni People’ campaign saw the distribution of aid to Aden, Lahij, Abyan, Dhale, Taiz and Hadhramaut governorates of Yemen.

During the campaign, the ERC also continued its humanitarian relief efforts in various education, health, and infrastructure re-development initiatives that seek to warrant the restoration of vital sectors in Yemen.

The health sector ranks highly on the UAE’s aid programmes in Yemen to make up for the shortage of medical supplies and the reconstruction of medical facilities. On 20th August, the Emirates Red Crescent reopened the ‘Chest and Tuberculosis Centre’ in the Mukalla district of the Hadhramaut governorate, following its renovation and refurbishment.

In the same month, the authority also signed an agreement to establish and equip a health clinic in Rabwat Khalaf in the district of Mukalla, to improve the quality of, and access to, health services in the Hadhramaut governorate.

The UAE was also at the forefront among countries that provided immediate assistance to fight the outbreak of Cholera in various Yemeni provinces in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, WHO. The nation provided AED10 million in medical supplies and helped facilitate the delivery of medications to the largest possible segments of Yemeni society.

The UAE has also devoted its efforts to social infrastructure and public utilities rehabilitation projects in many of the liberated Yemeni governorates.

The nation’s comprehensive aid programme saw the ERC signing an agreement in mid-August to implement a water network project in the Al Misbah and Al Asam districts of Al Soum in Hadhramaut governorate. As previously reported by the Emirates News Agency, WAM, the agreement specifies the drilling, digging and connection of individual wells to a main water reservoir in the area, as well as the rehabilitation of internal water networks, the construction of a water pump station and the establishment of water systems.

The authority also oversaw the funding and works to dig two artesian wells within the main water well in Al Odaiba, located in Ghayl Ba Wazir District in the Hadhramaut governorate, to assure the provision of suitable water supplies for drinking, agriculture, and livestock farming.

As for the educational sector, the UAE awarded a grant worth AED3 million to the governorate of Dhale in Yemen to cover the costs of two new schools and the rehabilitation of 16 schools that have been damaged by conflict. The month of August also saw the successful completion and opening of two schools in the Tuban District in the Lahij governorate as part of the nine schools being revamped by the ERC.

Carrying on the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan’s legacy of giving, the UAE’s humanitarian relief to Yemen is one of the fundamental pillars of the nation’s foreign aid policy, that seeks to assure the safety, security and stability for the people of Yemen.