Yemen: Response and Representation of a War
| Dates: | 20 February 2019 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Faculty of Humanities |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Hakim Khaldi, Keyan Salarkia, Larissa Fast |
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During the 4 years since the launch of the Saudi-led coalition offensive in Yemen in March 2015, humanitarians and observers from the media have repeatedly used phrases worded to garner media attention - “Worst humanitarian crisis since WII”, “the worst cholera outbreak in history”, “On the verge of famine” - to describe what all agree are tragic consequences of the war for the population of the country’.
However, the last six months have seen an acceleration of these apocalyptic descriptions, and the multiplication of alerts of all kinds. NGO spokespersons, UN officials – and many journalists who followed suit – quasi unanimously claimed that “this time really, millions of people were going to die of starvation”.
However, these discourses were disputed by a minority. MSF for instance stated via an interview of its program manager on 24 October 2018 that “there is was no quality data available to declare that a famine was imminent”, further stating that the organizations’ teams were not the witnesses of such a scenario. Yet, a month later, a press release by Save the children claimed that “as many as 85,000 children have starved to death in Yemen “
What then was at play? Who produces and analyses the data? What do we really know of the state of the country and the toll on war on the country and its population? Please join the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute with representatives from MSF and Save the Children UK, for a conversation which will try to understand the basis for the depiction and qualification of the situation by humanitarian NGOs and explore how this has impacted international responses.
Please register for your event ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/yemen-response-and-representation-of-a-war-tickets-55339786792?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
For more information about the Institute, our anniversary, events, and more, visit: https://www.hcri.manchester.ac.uk/about/10-years-hcri/
Speakers
Hakim Khaldi
Role: Humanitarian Project Coordinator
Organisation: Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF)
Keyan Salarkia
Role: Conflict and Humanitarian Advocacy Adviser
Organisation: Save the Children UK
Larissa Fast
Role: Director of Research
Organisation: HCRI
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
G.21
Mansfield Cooper Building
Manchester
