Yemen is suffering a cholera epidemic, and a Saudi airstrike just hit a crucial water facility

Saudi airstrike in Yemen.
(Image credit: ABDO HYDER/AFP/Getty Images)

An airstrike by the U.S.-enabled Saudi coalition intervening in Yemen's civil war hit crucial water supply facilities in the port city of Hodeida, the United Nations reported Sunday.

Loss of significant water infrastructure in a city of 600,000 would be catastrophic under any circumstances, but like much of Yemen, Hodeida is also suffering a cholera epidemic. Cholera is a waterborne illness that has infected more than 1 million Yemenis. Destruction of the plant that sanitizes and supplies the majority of the city's water will dangerously accelerate the disease's spread.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.