Muna Munasar an American who was stranded in Yemen asked President Obama “how come we are — third-class citizens?” in a report broadcast on Monday’s “Wolf” on CNN.
Munasar, who according to the report is from Buffalo, NY and was visiting her sick father when violence broke out in the country. She said despite calling the Riyadh embassy, “my family has been waiting there [at the port in Aden] for two weeks. We ran out of money, we ran out of food, we ran out of shelter. We were just sitting there waiting for someone to come and say ‘okay, where’s the Americans? Let’s pick them up.’
She added, I want to ask my president, Mr. Obama, how come we are — third-class citizens? how come our country did not come and rescue us?”
Christina Higgins, the Deputy Chief of Mission for the US Embassy in Djibouti, said that the US wasn’t evacuating its nationals because “it’s a very difficult situation. You’ve just returned from Yemen. It’s very fluid. We have one of the branches of Al Qaeda that’s especially active. There’s the Houthis, neither of these two groups friendly to US citizens. We’ve had to weigh very, very carefully what is the safest way, the best way for us to help them. For many US citizens, that’s going to mean sheltering in place. For other US citizens, we’re very actively working at getting information to them on different avenues for travel out of Yemen. And then of course when they reach places, like Djibouti we’re here right away at the port meeting them when they get off the boats to provide immediate assistance, food, water, and help them get their papers processed to travel home.”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer added that, “by all accounts, there are hundreds of Americans still stranded inside Yemen right now.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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