37 Saudi-led coalition aircraft, 1,200 tanks destroyed in Yemen war: Yemeni army

This file picture shows an F-15S fighter jet of the Royal Saudi Air Force.

Sun Dec 24, 2017 03:13PM

Dozens of Saudi-led coalition military aircraft in addition to hundreds of battle tanks and armored vehicles have been destroyed in the military campaign against Yemen as the Riyadh regime presses ahead with its atrocious airstrikes against its crisis-hit southern neighbor.

The Yemeni army, in a statement released on Sunday, announced that 37 aircraft plus more than 1,200 tanks and armored vehicles have been destroyed ever since the Saudi regime and its allies launched a devastating war on the country more than two and half years ago, Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported.

Saudi Arabia and its regional allies also lost a dozen Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, five McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon warplanes plus more than 20 reconnaissance aircraft.

The statement added that ten warships, frigates and a number of gunboats were also destroyed in the Saudi-led military aggression.

Yemeni army soldiers and allied fighters from Popular Committees have also targeted and destroyed hundreds of command centers and border outposts in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern regions of Najran, Jizan and Assir.

The statement further noted that the Saudi-led war on Yemen has incurred huge fiscal losses on the Riyadh regime and its allies.

A picture taken on December 23, 2017 shows a Yemeni inspecting destruction at a charity's destroyed food supply storage facility, following a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah. (Photo by AFP)

Sovereign wealth funds in the Saudi-led military alliance have been pulling money out of asset managers at a faster rate on record in order to finance the aggression against Yemen and cover arms expenditures.

Moreover, the Yemen war has resulted in a budget deficit of 15 percent of gross domestic product for Saudi Arabia, and decreased the volume of capital reserves from $737 billion to $437 billion.

The volume of Saudi Arabia’s military spending has also steadily increased to exceed $81 billion, making the oil-rich kingdom the world's third largest military spender after the United States and China.

More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.

The Saudi-led war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic across Yemen.

According to the World Health Organization’s latest count, the cholera outbreak has killed 2,167 people since the end of April and is suspected to have infected 841,906.

Yemenis inspect damage at the site of a reported Saudi-led coalition airstrike, in the northwestern city of Sa’ada on December 20, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

On November 26, the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) said that more than 11 million children in Yemen were in acute need of aid, stressing that it was estimated that every 10 minutes a child died of a preventable disease there.

Additionally, the UN has described the current level of hunger in Yemen as “unprecedented,” emphasizing that 17 million people are now food insecure in the country.

It added that 6.8 million, meaning almost one in four people, do not have enough food and rely entirely on external assistance.

A recent survey showed that almost one third of families had gaps in their diets, and hardly ever consumed foods like pulses, vegetables, fruit, dairy products or meat.

More than three million pregnant and nursing women and children under the age of five also need support to prevent or cure malnutrition.