Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen

Lesson Brief BBC Arabic
On April 20, BBC Arabic reported on the developing humanitarian crisis in Yemen as a result of the violence that has recently gripped the country. Civilians have suffered displacement and shortages of supplies since the Houthi takeover, but with the Saudi-led air campaign against the Iranian allies, civilian casualties are mounting. Hospitals are running short on basic medical necessities such as antibiotics and bandages. On a linguistic note, check out the phrase واصفا إياها where  إياها, meaning "them" in this case" is a combination of ها, the feminine object pronoun, and إيا, a device used VERY often in spoken Arabic signifying a direct object when a direct object, for whatever reason, cannot be attached to the verb or participle. In this case, the feminine object pronoun would normally be attached to the participle واصف, but because of the  pseudo-adverbial suffix attached to it, the feminine pronoun is separated and attached to  إيا.
Sky News Arabic

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