Americans remain stranded in Yemen

Thousands of Americans remain stranded in the war-torn nation of Yemen after coronavirus restrictions closed their borders in mid-March, and activists are now calling attention to the severity of the problem.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), thousands of Americans have been stranded in Yemen following the closure of borders and airports due to the coronavirus pandemic, as first reported by The Hill Friday.

Ahmed Mohamed, CAIR Litigation Officer, said the group had received more than 500 requests for assistance from Americans stranded in Yemen, and more than 2,000 had been provided from the State Department.

The State Department scheduled two flights that brought home about 300 Americans on June 28 and July 1 but did not address the thousands of other Americans who were still trying to return home.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Yemen is “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis” and that “four out of every five people in Yemen need life-saving assistance.”

“The situation in Yemen is catastrophic,” U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said this in a tweet. “This is what has been done to Yemen for more than five years of war. The health system is in a state of collapse, “said Lowcock, adding that coronavirus is spreading at a far higher pace than any other nation.

Mohamed says the State Department has to discuss why, for three months, they have not made attempts to evacuate Americans from Yemen, as they have done in “hundreds and hundreds, if not a hundred different countries around the world.”

They have never been able to receive a “adequate response” as to why more Americans have been unable to return to the U.S., simply saying that they do not have adequate resources in Yemen like the U.S. The Embassy closed in 2015, at the height of the civil war.

As a result, “almost thousands” of Americans have been stuck in Yemen for months and, in many instances , people are in need of consulate help for a number of reasons – as in the case of Miriam Alghazali, an American born and raised in New York, who was stuck in Yemen and unable to return to the United States to give birth.

Alghazali moved to Yemen with her husband and three children in August 2019 to meet her mother-in – law, who was terminally ill. By December, her mother-in-law had passed away, and her husband, Izdehar Alghazali, had returned to the U.S. with one of their children to secure an apartment, while Miriam, who had become pregnant, had stayed with the other two children.

The day the Alghazali family was scheduled to fly home, Yemen closed its borders, Mohamed told Fox News.

The State Department did not respond to their demands to leave Yemen.

Alghazali was born at the beginning of June, six weeks early, after “gun fire and missile fire” had been heard above the apartment where she and her two children were sleeping.

The Alghazali family was therefore unable to get on the two scheduled flights that departed Yemen at the end of June and the beginning of July because the child had no visa and was was not allowed to board, Mohamed told Fox News.
The State Department has now told the family and members at CAIR that it will now have to travel to a foreign nation to attend the U.S. Consulate to receive a visa for their children to be admitted back to the U.S.

“You know, the entire thing with Yemen is that there is no way to leave Yemen,” Mohamed said.

CAIR continues to demand the return of the Alghazali family to the United States, along with thousands of other Americans.

“America is the super force of the planet,” Mohamed said. “When America can not protect its people, it really points to America’s goals, the goals of this administration.”

The State Department could not be contacted to answer concerns about the crisis in Yemen.