'Yemen after 5 months looks like Syria after 5 years': Red Cross president

A Yemeni man carries a canister of gas he bought, after waiting for several hours in Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015. The Saudi-imposed blockade has created severe shortages of gas, petrol, and other goods, causing prices to skyrocket. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

GENEVA -- "Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years," the head of the international Red Cross says, describing the devastation from a conflict that has left more than 1,900 people dead since March.
Peter Maurer, fresh off a trip to the war-torn country in the Arabian Peninsula, said entrenched poverty, months of intensified warfare and limits on imports because of an international embargo have contributed to "catastrophic" conditions in Yemen.
"The firepower with which this war is fought on the ground and in the air is causing more suffering than in other societies which are stronger and where infrastructures are better off and people are wealthier and have reserves and can escape," Maurer told The Associated Press at his office in the headquarters of the International Committee for the Red Cross.