June/28/2017: Protests in Morocco and health crisis in Yemen

This week, we will talk about the dire humanitarian crisis in Yemen and how one organization is trying to raise awareness about the unfolding human catastrophe in Yemen and to raise funds to help people with food and medicine. We’ll be joined by 3 founding members of Yemen Relief Project, a grassroots, a charitable organization working to provide humanitarian relief while improving the overall quality of life of Yemeni people in underserved communities. But first, we go to London to continue our conversation with Moroccan anthropologist and activist Dr. Miriyam Aouragh about the revival of anti-government protests in the northern Rif region on Morocco's Mediterranean coast. -------------------------------------------------------- Last October, protests erupted in Morocco’s Rif region after a fish vendor named Mouhcine Fikri was crushed to death by a garbage truck compactor as he tried to retrieve fish the police had taken from him, claiming it was caught illegally. The protests have continued through 2017 and have taken up many of the same demands made during the February 20th movement of 2011, the large-scale protest movement during the Arab Spring. Anthropologist Miriyam Aouragh has called the recent protests as the “unfinished business” of Moroccan “Arab Spring” activists, and some on social media have been calling the latest wave of widespread demonstrations the “new February 20,” referring to the movement of 2011. On June 26th, during the the Eid holiday at the end of Ramadan, around 50 protesters were arrested following violent clashes with Moroccan police in the northern city of Al-Hoceima in Morocco’s northern Rif region Khalil Bendib picked up his conversation with Dr Arough where he left it last week about the latest protests in Morocco and what this means for the democracy movement in Morocco For months now, the UN has been warning of a looming human catastrophe in Yemen that could potentially kill hundreds of thousands of people . United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affair