Murphy Statement on Airstrikes in Yemen

Source: United States Senator for Connecticut – Chris Murphy

January 21, 2022

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism, on Friday released the following statement on recent airstrikes in Yemen:

“I’m incredibly alarmed by the strikes on civilian targets by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen over the last 48 hours. While these strikes appear to be in retaliation for the heinous cross-border attacks of the Houthis on Abu Dhabi earlier this week, nothing about them is proportional. The targets selected include a prison, a telecommunications center, and a children’s soccer field – and now hundreds of innocent civilians may be dead. While the parties to this conflict insist on continuing to wage war, it’s Yemeni civilians caught in the middle who suffer the most. It has to end. The only way this war ends is for all parties to sit down at the table to negotiate a political settlement. To alleviate the humanitarian suffering and give diplomacy space to succeed, the fighting and these airstrikes must stop,” said Murphy.

This week, Murphy released a statement on the Houthi attacks in the United Arab Emirates and the retaliatory attacks in Sana’a. Last year, Murphy authored an op-ed in Foreign Affairs proposing a new path for U.S. Gulf policy under President Biden.

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