US Senator Bernie Sanders, who recently announced he is running for president again in the 2020 elections, has blamed Saudi Arabia for the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, lashing out at Washington for being Riyadh’s partner in the deadly campaign against the improvised country. RNA - “Yemen is experiencing the worst humanitarian disaster in the world due to the Saudi-led war,” Sanders tweeted.
“The US has been Saudi Arabia's partner in this horrific war. Too often, our weapons are being used to kill civilians,” he added.
The US Senate is to vote on Wednesday on a resolution introduced by Sanders and Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) that would withdraw Washington's support for the brutal Saudi campaign.
“Today, the Senate can take a major step toward ending this war,” Sanders said in his tweet.
The vote on the war powers resolution will be the second within four months in the Senate.
The resolution would need only a simple majority to pass the Senate, which approved a similar resolution 56-41 in December last year in the aftermath of the murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Turkey’s Istanbul.
The December vote was the first time the US Senate backed a resolution to pull out forces from a war that was not approved by Congress.
“The humanitarian catastrophe has only gotten worse in Yemen, and our intervention there is every bit as unconstitutional as it was then,” Sanders said on Tuesday. “This time, after passing the Senate, I am confident it will pass in the House."
The White House warned last year that US President Donald Trump would veto the resolution even if the measure passed the Democratic-controlled House.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the former Saudi-sponsored government back to power.
According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.