PERFORMANCE OF HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATIONS WORKING IN SAADA DISCUSSED

SAADA, Jan.03 (Saba) - An expanded meeting was held here on Sunday to discuss the performance of humanitarian organizations and charities working in Saada province to assist the displaced people inside and outside the camps due to the insurgency war in the province.

The attendants reviewed the organizations' plans to present the humanitarian aid to the displaced and mechanism of cooperation and coordination among them and with the concerned authorities as well as reports on their implemented activities.

They dealt with the process of counting the newly displaced people and how the organizations can present aid to them to reduce their tribulation and dividing their whereabouts so that every organization can care for a specified crowd of displaced.

A number of issues and difficulties faced by the organizations were addressed in the meeting in addition to approving establishment of a coordination council to regularize the organization's work and ease their communication with the competent authorities in the government.

The participants also approved combining the displaced names lists and adopted the Red Crescent Society's lists as well as the coordination with the planning office in regard to the organizations' different activities.

Saada Governor, who chaired the meeting, urged those organizations to prepare daily reports on their activities and a map of displacement as well as pinpointing the displaced whereabouts to make providing aid for them easier.

The Red Crescent Society voiced its readiness to develop dwelling places for 95 displaced families and present humanitarian aid to about 30 thousand displaced families in different areas in the province.

The Islamic Relief Organization announced providing food for more than 8,000 displaced families, while Al-Amal Charity showed its willingness to count 2,000 new displaced people in Razih district and different zones of the Saada city.

According to the UN mission, there are more than 160,000 IDPs due to the recent confrontations between the army and rebels.

The Houthi rebels have been launching sporadic wars against the troops since 2004. Thousands of people, soldiers and insurgents have been killed in Saada province, which located close to border with Saudi Arabia, after the rebel group was founded by rebel leader Hussein al-Houthi.

Hussein, the eldest brother of the current group leader Abdul-Malik, was killed by the army in September 2004.

The Yemeni government accuses the Houthi group of trying to reinstall the rule of imams, which was toppled by a republican revolution in northern Yemen in 1962.

BA