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Yemen’s Red Crescent Yemen's Red Crescent founder dies – son blames Saudi Arabia

THE son of Yemen’s Red Crescent founder has blamed Saudi Arabia for his father’s death.

Zubair al-Khamesi, whose father Abdullah died in the Ibn Sinaa hospital in Sanaa on Friday, told the Guardian “he died because of lack of access to lifesaving medicine.”

Mr Khamesi’s doctor Mohammed al-Kaattaa said his family had made heroic efforts to obtain stents, which are used in treating narrow and clogged arteries, but the closure of Sanaa airport and a blockade imposed by the Saudis slowed the treatment.

Zubair added that his father could have lived had it been possible to get treated in Egypt or Jordan, but “the Saudis have stopped the planes.

“You are angry, you can’t do anything — but it’s not the [doctors’] fault, it’s the king of Saudi Arabia and [the emirs] of the Emirates” [a confederation of seven absolute monarchies each ruled by an emir].

Saudi restrictions on Yemen’s airspace, to allow its bombers free range as they pound the country’s hospitals and schools, allow a limited number of aid flights in but no commercial flights in or out.

Mr Khamesi founded Yemen’s Red Crescent in the 1970s. It is estimated to have saved thousands of lives since that time and has fought a desperate battle to provide humanitarian assistance to civilian victims of the Saudi-led war on the country which has raged since 2015.

Recent activities have included providing meals and clean water to Yemenis displaced by bombing and setting up makeshift schools with professional counsellors for children affected by the war.

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