Perth Indymedia

Which country has suffered the worst ever outbreak of cholera, with more than a million cases and over 2000 deaths recorded in the past year? You’d be forgiven for not knowing the answer is Yemen. Described by Amnesty International as the “forgotten war”, Yemen is in the fourth year of a conflict which has left over 10 000 people dead, and more than 8 million at risk of starvation. The war has entered a vicious new phase, with Saudi-led coalition forces launching an assault on the port city of Hodeida. Alex Whisson had the opportunity to speak to Helen Lackner, a research associate at the London Middle East Institute in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and author of the recently published, Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a State. Lackner began by outlining the 2011 protests in Yemen, which brought down the long term ruler of the country, Ali Abdullah Saleh.