By Saber Amr Ahmed
DJIBOUTI
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has urged the international community to step up efforts and coordination to deliver food and medicine to crisis-hit Yemen.
"The immediate crisis is a humanitarian one," Kerry said in a joint press briefing with Djiboutian Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf.
"We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Yemen," he said, stressing the need to address critical food, medicine and fuel shortages.
"The situation is getting more dire by the day," he added.
"We urged both sides of the conflict to keep civilians out of lines of war… and they should provide the opportunity to be able to deliver aid," he asserted.
That aid, he said, should be delivered by aid organizations already operating in the country.
For his part, Youssouf said his country – in cooperation with aid organizations – had deployed various kinds of support to Yemeni refugees in Djibouti over the past three months.
"So far," he said, "we have evacuated 12,000 people from Yemen, including Yemenis, Americans, Indians and other nationalities."
"We also facilitate the evacuation and repatriation of foreigners to their homeland," he said.
Kerry arrived in Djibouti earlier as part of an ongoing tour of East Africa.
Upon his arrival, he met with a cross-section of Djiboutian society – including senior officials and religious leaders – with whom he discussed means of tackling terror threats and enhancing regional peace and security.
Kerry also met with President Ismail Omar Guelleh behind closed doors.
Later in the day, he is expected to visit U.S. troops stationed at the Camp Lemonnier military base, which opened in 2003.
In May of last year, President Guelleh paid a visit to the U.S., during which he and U.S. President Barack Obama signed a new 20-year lease for the base – the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa.
Camp Lemonnier is a launch pad for U.S. counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa region and Yemen.
The Djibouti trip will be the final leg of Kerry's East African tour, which has already taken him to Kenya and Somalia.
He is scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia later on Wednesday.
