The Guardian published only two articles on the fires, while the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror completely ignored them, file photo
News Time
The British media has come under fire for ignoring human and natural disasters in the Middle East and for focusing on normal events. According to Arab News, the tragedy of the March 7 fire in the African refugee concentration camp in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, was ignored by the British media and there were no reports of any loss of life. Refugee camps run by Houthi rebels have been compared to German Nazi concentration camps where people are being held in appalling conditions. A fire in an African refugee camp has killed 43 people, but the actual death toll is in the hundreds. Based on the testimony of fire survivors, international human rights organizations and diplomats are urging Iranian-backed Houthis to blame for the tragedy.
The British media, in addition to covering the protests of black citizens in the United States, continues to express concerns about the victims of the war in Yemen, but the African refugees killed in the fire accident were not paid any attention at all. Even the outrage of the United Nations and Human Rights Watch over the tragedy did not get the attention of British journalists, leading to questions about the double standards of the British media. The article, published in Arab News, raises the question of whether the British media will only cover the events in Yemen if the Saudi-led coalition makes a mistake. The tragedy of the Houthi concentration camp fire is not uncommon. The Houthis initially did not say what caused the blaze, did not mention any protests or the number of victims.
The truth came to light when survivors and local human rights groups said a fire had broken out in the Ansugis shell warehouse. At the time, there were ongoing protests in the concentration camp against the abuse of refugees, which was being addressed. A British communications consultant told Arab News that reporting from Houthi-occupied areas poses a serious threat to Western journalists, but Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have provided evidence and called for action. The British broadcaster BBC and The Independent reported the incident the day after the blaze, while the BBC also reported the facts in the Human Rights Watch report. The Guardian, on the other hand, only paid attention when the United Nations called for an investigation a week after the tragedy. While the British newspaper The Times reported the incident 10 days after the fire, it also drew the attention of the administration when Arab News did not cover the accident at all. Speaking to Arab News, Yemen’s Information Minister Muammar al-Aryani expressed the same concerns that the Houthi militia has been committing war crimes since 2014, but unfortunately the media attention to this issue is insufficient. He added that the Western media has failed to expose the crimes of the Houthis, portraying them as victims, when in fact they are guilty.
