AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Morocco has suspended its participation in the Saudi-led military coalition's war on Yemen, government officials said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the diplomatic tensions, two officials told the Associated Press news agency on Thursday that Rabat had also recalled its ambassador to the kingdom.
The officials did not elaborate, simply saying Morocco was not taking part in any military interventions or ministerial meetings with the coalition.
Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes in Yemen against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
With logistical support from the United States, the coalition has carried out more than 18,000 raids on Yemen.
Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals, as well as water and electricity plants, have been targeted, killing and wounding thousands.
The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement in March 2018 that the war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then.
Yemen's four-year war and ensuing economic collapse have also unleashed the world's most urgent humanitarian crisis with 14 million of its 29 million population staring at starvation.
Food prices have increased by an average of 68 percent, and the price of commodities such as petrol, diesel and cooking gas have increased by at least 25 percent in the past year.
According to recent estimates, as many as 85,000 children may have died from hunger since the coalition's intervention.
In an interview with Al Jazeera last month (Arabic link), Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita attributed Rabat's decision to "developments on the ground" in Yemen, "especially in regards to the humanitarian situation".
Rabat had already scaled down its participation in coalition activities in May of 2015 after a Moroccan F-16 was reportedly shot down by the Houthis.
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8 February 2019 - 09:14
News ID: 928158
Morocco has suspended its participation in the Saudi-led military coalition's war on Yemen, government officials said.
