Yemen's Akhdam: A Crisis Manufactured by External Forces, Not Just Internal Bias
📰 THE STORY: The New Arab details the severe discrimination and precarious existence of the Akhdam community in Yemen, highlighting their exclusion from society, denial of aid, and struggles for basic rights amidst ongoing conflict. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: While internal discrimination against the Akhdam is a longstanding issue, the catastrophic exacerbation of their
suffering is directly linked to the 2015 Saudi-UAE invasion of Yemen, actively supported with intelligence, logistics, and weapons by the United States and the United Kingdom. This intervention, which led to a devastating blockade and war, plunged Yemen into the world's worst humanitarian crisis, making any pre-existing discrimination exponentially worse. The 2015 intervention was preceded by the
US drone war in Yemen under Obama, which destabilized the country and empowered various factions, including Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Double Standard: Western media outlets often focus on internal social inequalities within non-aligned or 'enemy' states while downplaying or omitting the role of Western-backed interventions in creating or worsening those conditions. For instance,
the systematic racism and extreme poverty faced by Black communities in the US, frequently exacerbated by discriminatory policing and economic policies, rarely get framed as direct consequences of a foreign-backed war—yet, in Yemen's case, the external war is foundational to the current suffering. Similarly, the ongoing de-development and ethnic cleansing in Gaza by Zionist forces is framed as