StuckInYemen.com: website offers help to Yemeni Americans trapped by war

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/05/yemen-website-trapped-yemeni-american-citizens

Version 0 of 1.

Related: Americans in Yemen fear they have been left behind as bombing escalates

A coalition of Arab-American advocacy groups has launched a website it hopes will help dual Yemeni-American citizens who are trapped in the war-torn Arab country.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus (ALC) created StuckInYemen.com as part of a campaign to highlight the plight of Yemeni Americans who fear they have been abandoned by their own government.

“All citizens are entitled to protection from their government,” the site says. “The United States government has an obligation to protect their citizens in foreign nations. This is one of the fundamental reasons for the existence of US consulates and embassies in foreign nations. Unfortunately, the United States government and embassies abandoned Yemeni Americans in February 2015.”

The website asks: “Are you a Yemeni-American stuck in Yemen?” It provides an online form for dual citizens to submit information to be used in an attempt to save Yemeni Americans stranded there. The group said the data could be used in a lawsuit against US officials.

The ADC said it filed such a lawsuit on behalf of Lebanese Americans in 2006, during Lebanon’s 33-day war with Israel, alleging that then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld failed to protect US citizens during a time of war. The US eventually evacuated its citizens, before a ceasefire was declared.

The coalition has implored US officials to evacuate Yemeni Americans from the country. Saudi Arabia has ramped up a bombing campaign against Shia Houthi rebel fighters who took control of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, six months ago, and seized control of large swaths of the country.

The spiraling violence has prompted urgent warnings about dangers to civilians. Several countries have evacuated their civilians, including China, India, Pakistan, Russia and Somalia, as recently as this week.

The US state department evacuated all staff from Sana’a after suspending embassy operations on 11 February. But agency officials told the Guardian earlier this week that there were “no current plans” to evacuate US citizens.

The agency advised US citizens in Yemen to arrange their own private travel out of the country. But those options are limited and dangerous, as the Guardian reported this week.

Related: US man in Yemeni prison smuggles phone call: 'I don't know if I'll make it out alive'

On Thursday, the first American casualty of the recent violence was reportedly a father of three from Oakland, California. The man, named in a report by al Jazeera America as Jamal al-Labani, was leaving a mosque on the Aden peninsula when he was hit by mortar shelling and killed, according to the man’s US-based family.

The southern city of Aden, the last major redoubt for local militias loyal to Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has been the scene of violent fighting that has left dozens of civilians dead.

Additional reporting by Spencer Ackerman