The US-Saudi siege targets fisheries in Yemen

The fish wealth in Yemen is a natural resource and an essential economic income to the country, as fish exports were in second place after oil exports, until the US-Saudi aggression came and destroyed everything. Now, fishermen take one day at the sea and more than two days in gas stations to resupply.

“These days, oil derivatives are accessible to everyone, their price is 12,800 (Rials), but fishermen can only buy them at a price of 14,000 to 20,00. Why? because they buy from the black market,” the deputy head of the General Authority for Fisheries in the Red Sea, Mohammed Al-Omeisy, said.

Abdullah Nahari, a fisherman, said: “The problems facing the fishermen were caused by the aggression and the neighboring country, which is the State of Eritrea, as well as the blockade of oil derivatives, and the bombing of fishermen by the aggression.”

The decline in local demand in a number of governorates, and the lack of fuel, which was the reason for the exploitation of black market merchants to start selling gasoline, made officials within Hodeidah province, the Agricultural Fisheries Committee and the General Authority for Fisheries move towards finding a solution to this crisis, and a number of fixed and mobile gas stations were established in various fish landing centers at the official price.

Deputy Minister of Fisheries Abdullah Idris said: “Of course, through our field visits to the landing centers in the Hodeidah governorate, we found that the suffering is almost the same for all fishermen, the most important of which is the problem of oil supplies, which constitutes a major obstacle for fishermen, as it is considered the mainstay in their work, and we are on this day and in the previous days, thanks to Allah, have launched a lot of stations in all the landing sites, either by direct distribution or through fixed base stations in some areas and the rest of the areas are distributed through mobile stations so that this service reaches where every fisherman works.”

The seafarers were subjected to extortion by the countries of aggression, a number of them and their colleagues were forced to stop sailing with their boats, and they became unable to work because of the dangers facing them.

The decrease in the volume of fish production since the beginning of the aggression, according to the opinion of specialists, is due to several reasons, perhaps the most important of which is the lack of fuel, which greatly affected the fishermen at sea.