By the Numbers: Media Discounts Yemen War Deaths

Catastrophic Death Toll in US-Saudi War on Yemen Has Been Grossly Downplayed

by TRNN

October 31, 2018

The United Nations has warned that 14 million Yemenis are at serious risk of famine as the United States continues backing a brutal Saudi and Emirati war which many observers say borders on the genocidal.

As Yemen suffers from the worst humanitarian catastrophe on earth, the UN Humanitarian Chief Mark Lowcock said that the danger of famine is, quote, “much bigger than anything any professional in this field has seen during their working lives.”

Amal Hussain aged 7 years. RIP

Mainstream corporate media outlets have largely ignored or glossed over this catastrophic war since it began in March 2015, despite the fact that the U.S. and British governments have played key roles supporting the relentless Saudi bombing campaign. And even when media outlets have acknowledged the war, they have frequently downplayed and whitewashed just how criminal the assault has been.

The UN and corporate media have for years claimed only 10,000 Yemenis were killed in the US/UK-backed Saudi/UAE war. But Yemen’s actual death toll is 70,000 to 80,000. Patrick Cockburn on the whitewashing of the catastrophic war.

One of the most repeated myths that has been endlessly rehashed in the past few years is the claim that only 10,000 Yemenis have been killed from the violence in this war. After 21 months, virtually all major media outlets are still repeating the same death toll, that 10,000 Yemenis have died, which is a figure from January 2017 from the United Nations. Still, in October 2018, this 10,000 death figure is still being repeated by the Associated Press, Agence France Presse, and the New York Times, among other outlets. And this absurd reporting has shown how Yemen’s death toll has been grossly downplayed for years.

Well, a new report in the British newspaper The Independent dispels this 10,000 death toll myth once and for all. In a new piece, titled The Yemen War Death Toll Is Five Times Higher Than We Think, veteran reporter Patrick Cockburn reports that at least 56,000 civilians and combatants were killed in Yemen in the 21 months between January 2016 and October 2018. It’s less than two years. Virtually all of those killed were Yemenis, along with a smaller number of mercenaries hired by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.