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发帖数: 32828 | 1 By Hamed Aleaziz Updated 5:18 pm, Saturday, April 4, 2015
Jamal al-Labani, an Oakland resident who was visiting Yemen, became a victim
of the violence that has plagued the Mideast country when he died after
being struck by shrapnel while walking home in the Yemini port city of Aden,
his family said Saturday.
Al-Labani, an American citizen in his 40s, and his nephew were killed by
rebel tank fire Tuesday, said his cousin, Mohammed Alazzani, 27, who lives
in San Leandro.
His family described al-Labani as a quiet but caring man who was part-owner
of an Oakland gas station and had lived in the city for more than a decade.
“He was very kind and he was a really hard-working guy,” Alazzani said.
Alazzani was notified of the death by family back in Yemen.
The country has been gripped with violence as Shiite Houthi rebels battle
government forces that are backed by a Saudi-led air strike campaign. The
United Nations has reported that more than 500 people have died in the past
two weeks alone.
On Saturday, the Red Cross called for an immediate 24-hour cease-fire.
The Oakland resident traveled to the country in February to visit his wife
and two-year-old daughter in hopes of bringing both of them back to the
United States. In recent weeks, al-Labani had unsuccessfully attempted to
leave the country. He has two teenage boys from a previous marriage who
currently live in Fresno.
Alazzani said that the U.S. government could have done more to aid al-Labani
’s attempt to leave Yemen.
“If the U.S. government acted somehow last week we could have saved this
life,” he said.
In a press briefing Friday, Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said
the U.S. does not have plans to be more proactive in evacuating American
citizens now in the country. Given the unpredictable nature of the situation
in Yemen, civilian lives could be put at greater risk if military assets
were sent to attempt an evacuation, she added.
The U.S. Embassy in Sana’a, the country’s capital, was closed in February
and Americans were urged to avoid traveling to the country and to leave when
it was safe to do so.
Harf said the government is not abandoning American citizens, citing 10
years of travel warnings against visiting the country. “But you have to
balance what options we have for a possible evacuation against the security
situation, against what is feasible, against what kind of assets could do
this and what the risk is to those assets,” she said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Asian Americans Advancing
Justice-Asian Law Caucus have recently called for the evacuation of American
citizens in Yemen.
"With many other nations mounting efforts to evacuate their citizens, it is
unclear why the United States chooses to leave its citizens to their own
devices in an increasingly deadly combat situation,” said Zahra Billoo, the
executive director of the CAIR’s Bay Area chapter, in a statement.
A Chinese warship recently helped evacuate more than 200 foreign nationals,
including German and Canadian citizens, whose governments had reportedly
requested help from China in aiding their evacuation.
Alazzani hopes that the government will now turn its attention to the
remaining American citizens stuck in the country.
“The main message for us is we need our government to react immediately —
the longer we wait the worse it gets. If we lost one person,” he said, “at
least we can save others.” | k*******r
发帖数: 16963 | 2 也门美国人不算美国人，黄皮美国人也不算美国人，哈哈 |
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