Yemen’s conflict has led thousands of tons of toxic waste to pile up in the landfills of Sanaa
The al-Azraquain landfill in Yemen receives piles of waste on a daily basis including several untreated medical wastes coming from the hospitals in the country’s largest city Sanaa. Recently the landfill is being unloaded with endless amounts of garbage due to the country’s humanitarian crisis.
People are seen to be standing near the garbage unpacking trucks with the hope to collect recyclable materials. The seven years of conflict have diminished Yemen’s economy to a dangerously low level.
According to sources, the Yemen Civil War started in 2014 between Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi-led Yemeni government and the Islamist political armed movement, Houthi along with allied supporters. Once Houthi forces took over the capital city of Sanaa the civil war broke out. Houthi forces also rapidly took over the government leading to an extreme administrative collapse. Consequently, Saudi Arabia launched military operations against the Houthis via air strikes in order to restore the former government. However, Houthi forces still remained in the capital of Sanaa even though there is still occurrence of clashes with pro-Hadi forces backed by Saudi Arabia.
According to the UN, war-torn Yemen has been harboring the most acute humanitarian crisis of starvation. Almost 150,000 people were killed and 227,000 dead resulting from the ongoing famine. The constant bombardment by the Saudi campaign and “the worst famine in the world in 100 years” has made several international communities condemn the act of violence.
In 2015 the Saudi airstrike has shattered the Sanna’s largest landfill and waste management buildings. Since then the city of Sanaa has been facing extreme difficulties to process waste and as the days go by the number of waste is piling into tons.
According to the data manager of the landfill Bahauddin al-Hajj, “We have no solution but to bury it the medical waste with the garbage. It is mixed with garbage and buried. this may cause issues in the future, health issues-chemicals may leak into the groundwater, meaning this will affect the environment, this is one of the biggest threats to the environment.”
The United Nations Development Programme in 2021 has introduced a waste-to-energy system in Yemen in order to “revolutionize the government’s approach to addressing waste management.”
The newly inaugurated plant is expected to manage five tons of solid waste a day. However, the plant’s efficiency to waste management is being questioned since the amount of waste that is being filled at the al-Azraquin landfill is approximately 1,870 tons of waste per day.
