The Socialist Popular Alliance Party (SPAP) is “disturbed” by Egypt’s decision to join Saudi-led attacks in Yemen, the party said said in a statement on Sunday.
The party said the authorities’ decision came at a time of “domestic and regional complications”. It is therefore “unacceptable” that Egypt provide aid for “foreign plans” that aim to provide a “secure environment for the Zionist entity”.
Last Wednesday, Saudi Arabia announced it will begin airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. On Thursday, Egypt announced that it will back Saudi Arabia “politically and militarily” in its Yemeni airstrikes.
Egypt also added that it will provide aerial and naval assistance, and “if necessary” it may provide troops on the ground.
Saudi Arabia, backed by other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, has since bombed several locations in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, including the city’s international airport.
The SPAP added that “aggressive international interventions” seek to “reorganise” the Middle East region and to “circumvent the movements and popular uprisings that the Arab world has been witnessing since late 2010”.
There is no transparency, or collective decision-making in the authorities’ military backing of Saudi Arabia, the group said. It added that Egyptian citizens do not know the “extent of cooperation, its true aims, and the dangers that it poses”.
At least 25 civilians, including at least six children, have been killed as a result of the attacks, according to international human rights group Amnesty International.
The SPAP demanded that Egypt focus instead on “fighting terrorism” internally to Egypt and on managing resources to solve the economic crises that the country is “suffocating” from.
Real help to the Yemeni people should come in the form of providing venues for dialogue and finding a political solution, the group said. It added that it refuses further “ripping apart of the Yemeni peoples’ unity”.
