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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, has already run out of water. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-blockade-r...

There were serious problems before the war, but now it's just a disaster area. The US supports this.

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It is not just the US. Canada in recent years signed a $15Bln contract to supply the Saudi Arabia rulers with weapons. (I was going to say 'government but 'rulers' feels more appropriate in this case).

Saudi Arabia is at war with Yemen and the war is causing the humanitarian crisis described in the above article.

Indeed, the UK position is "We'll support the Saudis in every practical way short of engaging in combat.":

https://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/stop-arming-saudi/arms-sal...

Same for Italy, we tripled arms sales to them in the last two years and Parliament recently voted not to restrict the flow despite the conflict in Yemen.

The difference is, Cape Town is not in war time. I can't think of the last time there was literal war in Cape Town, there's nothing in recent times. My best guess would be "a small but significant military engagement" on 8 January 1806 (1).

Unrest in the late 1980s doesn't count.

As far as I know, there were no military engagements in Cape Town during the Anglo-Boer wars (1880 - 1881 and 1899 – 1902).

1 ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blaauwberg

There was some action in World War 2 with shipping around the peninsula, but nothing in the city itself

Right. Nothing that would destroy the city's pipes or other infrastructure, and therefor ability to manage water, in that.

Yes, U-boats sank merchant shipping in Table Bay

> is not in war time

Maybe not physical destruction. But "war time" is something that will get decided by historians in 20 years time.

In a more cyber conscience world social engineering of the state[0] will become a act of war...

or something in that line, I hope.

gobble gobble

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_family

I totally get that there is tension and conflict in the situation. Other comments allude to the tension between Local and national governments (1) and there may be an element that the National government is neglecting CT or actively wanting it to fail.

I don't think though this is the same as a city like Sanaa being shelled into rubble (2)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16176394

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/inside-war-torn-yemens-capi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoZsjagnKPs

Yemen was nearly running out of water even before the war started. In any case these are quibbles. Yemen and South Africa having cities without water should be a major alarm to all civic leaders.

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