In Yemen, the coronavirus pandemic is overwhelming hospitals and cemeteries. More young people are dying there than in most other countries, and the virus is spreading so fast the World Health Organization believes it could infect nearly the entire Yemeni population.

Meanwhile, almost everyone who is in a position to prevent a catastrophe is instead making the situation worse.

The Houthis, the armed group under whom most Yemenis live, are refusing to acknowledge the extent of the outbreak and threatening people who do, fueling panic and conspiracy theories among the public while they seek to protect their own power. The Houthis opponents Yemens internationally recognized government, along with Saudi Arabia and the U.S. are failing to provide the level of needed aid or to halt bombings and a blockade of Houthi-controlled areas, causing inflation and mass hunger that makes many Yemenis especially vulnerable to COVID-19.

Both sides of the conflict are ignoring pleas for a ceasefire, and one fighting force, a coalition of southern Yemenis supported by the United Arab Emirates, has escalated an offensive against fellow anti-Houthi fighters since Yemen reported its first coronavirus case in April. None of the governing authorities across Yemen are seriously enforcing policies to limit the virus spread imposing a greater burden on a health care system that has already lost half its capacity to the war and now has 700 ICU beds and 157 working ventilators for a nation of 30 million, according to the United Nations .

The WHO predicts a coronavirus death toll of at least 65,000 in Yemen unless officials change course, its representative in the country told the medical journal The Lancet. Amid the added strain on health care resources, experts also expect more deaths among Yemenis with ailments other than COVID-19, like endemic cholera, malaria, diphtheria or dengue, and those hurt by recent cuts to humanitarian food programs.

Just as powerful Yemenis and international players previously decided to turn Yemen into a battleground, they now seem committed to letting thousands of Yemeni families suffer showing that even a shared global challenge like a pandemic cant end the countrys treatment as a global punching bag.

The money they have spent to destroy the lives of people in Yemen if they spent one tenth, one hundredth of that to develop Yemen, Yemen will be an ally to them for the rest of their history, said Aisha Jumaan, the president of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation .

The leaders in Sanaa, Washington, Riyadh and elsewhere who will decide Yemens future still have a chance to get it right. But time is running short.

Refusing To Take Responsibility

The Houthis took over Yemens capital city of Sanaa in September 2014, despite advice not to do so from their patron, Iran. Wary of Irans reach, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their allies began fighting the militants six months later to shore up the Houthis Yemeni opposition. Military and intelligence support from the U.S. and other wealthy Western countries has been crucial to their intervention.

Each of those players has worsened the coronavirus pandemic for Yemen.

The U.S. has provided more than $2 billion in aid to the country since 2015. But it began changing its approach just as the global pandemic grew. In late March, the U.S. cut off tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance over Houthi interference in its delivery. Weeks later, Trumps decision to end funding for the WHO worsened a funding crunch for the body, which began to wind down payments to thousands of Yemeni health workers and support for nearly 200 hospitals.

The State Department announced nearly $225 million in emergency food aid for Yemen, where millions live in famine-like conditions, and a $1.7 million donation specifically for coronavirus relief in early May.

Yet its hard to know if that support is reaching the people who need it most, particularly the majority of the population living in Houthi-controlled areas, lawmakers and activists say. On May 12, six senators asked Trump administration officials to clarify what assistance they had allowed to continue for humanitarian reasons and whether that included material to counter the coronavirus like personal protective equipment and ventilators, as well as details about where in the country the $225 million is going.