Dhruv Advani
- Jun 22, 2020
- 16 min read

THE YEMENI CRISIS

By: Dhruv Advani and Mamatha Shastri

SYNOPSIS

According to UNICEF, and a majority of UN organisations, Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with over 24 million people – around 80% of its population – in need of humanitarian assistance and aid, including over 12 million children. Since the conflict escalated in March 2015, the country has become a living hell for the country, especially for its children.

With COVID-19 now spreading rapidly, Yemen is facing a crisis within a crisis. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene(WaSH) facilities are in short supply. Only half of the country’s health facilities are functioning, and many that remain operational lack basic pieces of equipment like masks, gloves, in addition to oxygen and other essential supplies that are required to treat the coronavirus. Many health workers are receiving no salaries or incentives. Yemen is also facing the largest Cholera epidemic in medically recorded history. It has affected over 2 million people and killed around 4000 citizens. It has only been made worse by the Civil War and the Saudi Intervention.

The Civil War began in 2014, as the Houthis, also called Ansar Allah, dissatisfied with the Hadi government, erupted in rebellion. They captured the Presidential Palace in January 2015, causing the Hadi government, along with the President, to flee the country.

Subsequently, the Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in Yemen on behalf of the Hadi government. They claimed that the Houthis were backed by Iran, and performed numerous airstrikes and ground attacks in addition to creating a naval blockade to disrupt the supply of trade and humanitarian aid into the country.

While the economy of Yemen was already weak before the conflict erupted in 2015, it's escalation has nearly destroyed it. The value of the Yemeni Rial has fallen drastically and inflation has been extremely rapid.

CIVIL WAR

Yemen’s highly strained civil conflict first began in 2014 when Houthi insurgents assumed charge of Yemen's capital city Sana’a with demands of a new government and reduced fuel prices. Negotiations took place subsequently between the Houthis and the Government, but in vain, as the rebels seized the presidential palace in January of 2015. This led to the resignation of the existing government, including President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who soon fled the country as well.

In March 2015 , Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Gulf States against the Houthi control over Yemen, aided by U.S logistical and intelligence services. After Hadi returned to Aden in September of the same year, the UN stepped in to broker peace talks between the allied Houthi rebels and the official Yemeni government. However they withdrew their efforts in the summer of 2016. Intervention of a third party as well as regional powers ensued, threatening to pull the country into the larger Shia-Sunni divide and even created a naval and air blockade.

In the meanwhile, the conflict took quite a heavy toll on Yemeni civilians, causing innumerable injuries and over 15,000 fatalities. Almost 22 million Yemeni people remain in distress and in need of immediate assistance. 4 million people have been displaced due to the prolonged military conflict and air strikes and almost 8 million are fighting an unwinnable fight against a famine. There just seems to be no end in sight for the Yemeni civil war and the suffering its people face as a result of the same.

SAUDI-LED INTERVENTION

The Arab coalition, commonly called the Saudi-led Intervention, was launched by Saudi Arabia in 2015. The coalition consisted of nine countries from West Asia and Africa, namely, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Sudan(2015-19), Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar(2015-17), Egypt, Jordan, Morocco(2015-19), and Senegal, and is backed by the United States and the United Kingdom.

Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, a Saudi backed candidate, won the 2012 elections in Yemen, and assumed the position of President. From August 2014, the Houthis, also called Ansar Allah, said to be backed by Iran, began a militant movement which ultimately led to the takeover of the Hadi government in 2015. This takeover was facilitated by mass protests over dissatisfaction with the current government and the new constitution. Saudi Arabia denounced this move and called it a coup d’etat.

OPERATION DECISIVE STORM

In response to the Houthi revolution, the joint member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council(except Oman) released a joint statement saying that they had decided to intervene against the Houthis on behalf of the Hadi government. On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes on Yemen with the aim to restore the rule of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and eliminate the Houthi movement.

During the 26th Arab League Summit on 28th and 29th March 2015, held in Sharm el-Sheikh, King Salman vowed: “the campaign will continue until it achieves its goals for the Yemeni people to enjoy security.”

What was initially planned as a limited operation degenerated into a war of attrition without a conclusion in sight. The crisis in Yemen is extremely complex. It is neither an international proxy war nor is it a sectarian conflict.

DID YOU KNOW?

Proxy War: It is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors which act on the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities. In simple terms, it can be defined as a war in which opposing sides use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly.

Sectarian Conflict: Sectarian violence, also called sectarian strife, is a form of communal violence inspired by sectarianism, that is, between different sects of one particular ideology or religion within a nation/community. Religious segregation often plays a role in sectarian violence.

The intervention, code named Operation Decisive Storm, consisted of a bombing campaign on Houthi(Ansar Allah) rebels, followed by a naval blockade and deployment of infantry and ground forces into Yemen. Forces and jets from Egypt, Morocco, the erstwhile Republic of Sudan, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Academi(formerly known as Blackwater) took part in the Operation.

According to the Saudi Arabian news outlet Al Arabiya, and Al Jazeera, Saudi Arabia contributed 100 warplanes and around 150,000 soldiers. The UAE contributed 30 fighter jets, Kuwait and Bahrain sent 15, Qatar sent 10, Jordan and Morocco 6, and Sudan provided 4.

Paradoxically, the Houthis were previously Saudi Arabia’s ally. In the context of the Arab Cold War, which dominated the region in the 1950s and 1960s, the struggle in Yemen became a truly proxy war between Egypt supporting the Republic and the Saudi Kingdom supporting the monarchy

Saudi Arabia’s motivation in the Yemen offensive arguably reflects a Kingdom that is starting to rely on its own resources in fighting for and asserting its status as a leading power in the region. Scholars, commentaries in the Arab media, and government officials have often characterized the war in Yemen as part of a larger struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran over influence in the Middle East. From this perspective, the war is the reaction to the influence of Iran expanding in the Arabian Peninsula through the rebel Houthi movement.

The Operation was declared closed on 21st April 2015.

OPERATION RESTORING HOPE

The Saudi Defense Ministry, on 21st April, announced that it would be ending the airstrike campaign, as it had supposedly “successfully eliminated the threat posed by heavily armed Houthis and their ballistics.”

It announced the commencement of a new phase of the intervention, called Operation Restoring Hope. One the same day, King Salman ordered the National Guard to join the Intervention forces. Bombings and the Naval Blockade continued despite Operation Decisive Storm being declared closed.

Both Omani and Iranian governments expressed their support for the end of airstrikes. On April 22nd, Oman released a seven-point peace plan to both parties that entailed reinstating the Hadi regime and the evacuation of Houthi fighters from major cities.

According to CNN, on the night of 6 May 2015, the Saudi-led coalition carried out 130 airstrikes in Yemen in a 24-hour period. At first, coalition spokesperson Ahmed Asiri admitted that schools and hospitals were targeted but claimed that these were used as weapon storage sites. Asiri later claimed that his words had been mistranslated. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Johannes Van Der Klaauw, said that these bombings constituted a war crime. "The indiscriminate bombing of populated areas, with or without prior warning, is a contravention of international humanitarian law," he said. He continued to say that he was particularly concerned about airstrikes on Saada “where scores of civilians were reportedly killed and thousands were forced to flee their homes after the coalition declared the entire governorate a military target".

On 8th May 2015, under immense pressure from the US, Saudi Arabia announced a ceasefire of five days set to commence on 12th May. Airplanes dropped leaflets all over the Saada Governorate, spreading warnings about impending airstrikes in the area.

On 13th May 2015, humanitarian agencies began attempting to send aid into Yemen as the ceasefire began. Ships with supplies docked at the Red Sea Port of Hudaydah, under Houthi control and planes stood by to evacuate the injured.

On 18th May 2015, airstrikes resumed on Houthi positions, after the end of the five day ceasefire. Saudi forces also shelled Houthi forces along the northern border of Yemen. The attacks greatly disrupted the provision of Riyadh Yassin, the former Foreign Minister of Yemen blamed the Houthis for the renewal of hostilities.

Such attacks and airstrikes have continued over the past three to four years, and have decimated the Yemeni population, killing thousands and displacing more.

Some scholars claim that this intervention was not in fact, on behalf of the Hadi government, but to establish that Saudi Arabia is a leading power in the Middle East region, due to the recent ascension of Salman al Saud to King and his son Prince Mohamed Bin Salman to defence minister in January 2015.

Others believe that this is a part of a greater larger conflict between the establishment of power of Iran and Saudi Arabia, that is, between the sects of Islam, Sunnis and Shiites. However, according to several sources, Iran has not played much part in the Houthi conflict. Its role has supposedly been deliberately exaggerated and distorted by Saudi Arabians, to paint the same as villains.

Regardless of whether this is a proxy war or not, and of the motive behind it, this is a horrendous conflict that has been, and is currently, affecting the 29.8 million people of Yemen. International Action and Provision of Aid is extremely essential in mitigating this crisis. However, it does not seem possible that this conflict will end, at least in the near future.

BLOCKADE

The naval and air blockades formed as a result of the Yemeni civil conflict in March 2015 severely restricted flow of food, fuel, and medicine to civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law. Although the coalition eased restrictions, it continues to prevent necessary aid and almost all commercial imports from reaching Houthi-controlled ports, resulting in an unlawfully disproportionate impact on civilians’ access to essential goods. The Saudi ceasefire was maintained.

ECONOMIC CRISIS

Even prior to the establishment and escalation of conflict in Yemen in 2015, its economy was in shambles. With a population of less than 30 million people, it was ranked 153rd in the HDI(Human Development Index), 138th in extreme poverty, 147th in life expectancy, 172nd in educational attainment, and classified as low-middle income in the World Development Report, released by the World Bank.

DID YOU KNOW?

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite index of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators, which are used to rank countries into four tiers of human development. It is published by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP)

The World Development Report (WDR) is an annual report published since 1978 by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) or World Bank. Each WDR provides in-depth analysis of a specific aspect of economic development.

Many scholars and experts assert that Yemen would not be able to achieve the SDGs or revive its economy to pre-conflict level by 2030, even if the conflict was to end immediately.

The ongoing conflict has further reduced the pace of development. The impacts of conflict in Yemen are devastating—with nearly a quarter of a million people killed directly by fighting and indirectly through lack of access to food, health services, and infrastructure. Of the dead, 60 per cent are children under the age of five. The long-term impacts of conflict are vast.

As a matter of fact, it can be placed amongst the most destructive conflicts since the end of the Cold War. The conflict has already set back human development in Yemen by 21 years! If the conflict were to end in 2022, development would be set back 26 years—over one generation. If the conflict persists through 2030, the setback grows to nearly four decades, amounting to nearly one and a half generations. In this case, one-in-five surviving Yemenis will be physically stunted because of acute malnutrition caused directly by the conflict.

The conflict in Yemen is devastating to development gains and impacts children disproportionately. By 2030, the UNDP estimates that indirect deaths as a result of the conflict (caused by lack of access to food, health care and infrastructure services) will be five times greater than direct deaths. Most of those deaths will be comprising infants and children, with an estimated 1.5 million killed by 2030 if this conflict persists.

As a result of Civil War, the Saudi-Intervention and Blockade, and all the other crises that Yemen is facing, the value of Yemeni Rial has fallen drastically and inflation has occurred at a rapid rate, and Yemen’s economy contracted by over 50% from March 2015, when the conflict began, to October 2018.

In conclusion, the Intervention and Civil War has devastated the economy and destroyed critical infrastructure to a great extent. Even before the current conflict, years of mismanagement and corruption and the depletion of oil and water resources had led to chronic poverty, underdevelopment, and minimal access to such basic services as electricity, water, and health care in much of the country. The conflict has aggravated that situation, and significant international assistance will likely be needed when the civil war ends. For the time being, the lack of incentive for the rebel Houthis to negotiate and the Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to accept a supposed Iran proxy makes it highly unlikely that this conflict will reach a resolution in the near future.

FAMINE

Since 2016, Yemen has been afflicted by a horrible famine, as a direct result of the Yemeni Civil War. As a matter of fact, in October 2018, the United Nations warned that over 13 million people would face starvation in what had the potential to be the worst famine in over a hundred years. In November of 2018, a report by the Save The Children Fund(commonly called Save The Children) estimated that over 85,000 children under the age of 5 had perished due to starvation. A child in Yemen dies every 10 minutes of preventable causes, including malnutrition, diarrhea and respiratory infection. Some have even compared the Yemeni Famine to the holodomor of Soviet Ukraine.

DID YOU KNOW?

The holodomor, also called the Terror-Famine, or the Famine-Genocide, was the man-made famine in 1932-33 in Ukraine that killed millions of Ukranians. It was part of the larger Soviet Famine of 1932-33. However, in 2006, the Ukranian government recognised that the holodomor was a genocide inflicted upon the Ukranian people by the Soviet government.

Over 17 million of Yemen’s population is at risk, of which over 3.3 million pregnant women/new mothers and children under the age of 5 suffer from acute malnutrition. Over 100,000 children affected are from the Al Hudaydah governorate, with Al Hudaydah being the worst affected area in the province. This famine has only been compounded by the largest outbreak of cholera in medically recorded history, and worsened further by the Saudi blockade and the Houthi Food Confiscation.

The famine can be considered a direct result of the Saudi-led Intervention. Yemen was already one of the poorest countries in the region, with Al Hudaydah being one of its poorest cities. The war and the Naval blockade implemented by the Saudi-led coalition and the United States Navy, has worsened the situation drastically. Fishing boats, the livelihood of the people of Al Hudaydah, were destroyed to a large extent by airstrikes, thereby taking away people’s ability to provide for their families and purchase food. In addition, in 2017, a panel of United Nations experts found that Saudi Arabia was purposefully obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid, and deliberately targeting means of food production and distribution in Yemen by bombing farms, ports, fishing boats, etc.

The Houthi ‘rebels’ have been accused of confiscating food and medicine, along with other supplies, from the citizens under their control, several times over the past few years. In 2018, the UN’s World Food Programme(WFP) threatened to cut off supply of food to the region if the Houthi rebels did not stop theft and fraud of said supplies, and warned that it would affect over 3 million people, and greatly worsen their condition.

The British researcher Alex de Vaal enunciated his opinion about the Yemeni Famine, stating:

The world’s worst famine since North Korea in the 1990s and the one in which Western responsibility is clearest... Britain has sold at least £4.5 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and £500 million to the UAE since the war began. The US role is even bigger: Trump authorised arms sales to the Saudis worth $110 billion last May. Yemen will be the defining famine crime of this generation, perhaps this century.

Yemen was ranked 116th out of 117 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2019 with an index score of 45.9. The only country ranked lower was the Central African Republic.

The WFP has upscaled its aid and is feeding over 12 million of the most vulnerable Yemenis each month. However, it has unmet funding needs, and is hence unable to scale its operations and aid provisions any further.

While organisations like MSF(Doctors without Borders), WFP(World Food Programme), HRW(Human Rights Watch), etc have tried and are currently providing aid to the starving people of Yemen, it is not nearly enough to deal with this crisis. International intervention and retreat of the Saudi-led Intervention forces along with the resolution of the Civil War in Yemen is the only way to deal with this famine. It is essential that definite action be taken to deal with the same.

COVID-19

A catastrophic health hazard swept the world in 2019-20 with almost 8.5 million confirmed cases and 500,000 lives claimed worldwide in just around 7 months from its inception. The Covid-19 pandemic, a variant of the Coronavirus, has not spared any less than 216 countries from its fatal clutches, Yemen included. The first Covid-19 case in Yemen was confirmed in early April. Yemen's National Emergency Committee declared that their patient zero was a 60-year-old man from the southern oil-producing region of Hadramawt. Spokesman Ali al-Walidi said that the man was in a stable condition at a quarantine centre. Reuters reported that the authorities immediately sealed off the port where the man worked and ordered other employees to self-isolate for two weeks.

Since then there have been approximately 909 confirmed cases and 248 deaths. Reputed members of the World Health Organisation had warned months ago that the spread of the pandemic in Yemen would devastate the country's already gutted healthcare system."A Covid-19 outbreak in Yemen will put a heavy strain on the country's damaged health infrastructure and will have a devastating impact on its civilians. If we don’t act today, what we will witness tomorrow is unspeakable.”, said Xavier Joubert, director of Save the Children in Yemen.

At a time when health care workers worldwide are needed and expected to be on the "front lines", Yemen's caregivers are bracing for yet another straining battle. They have always been fighting outbreaks of deadly diseases including diphtheria, dengue, and in recent years, the worst outbreaks of cholera the world has ever seen which had its negative impacts on the healthcare system in addition to the instability and poor infrastructure the civil war brought upon the country. What’s utterly heart-breaking about the Covid-19 outbreak in Yemen specifically is the fact that the Yemeni people are more vulnerable to the deadly virus considering the fact that a majority of the population live in unsanitary conditions and only survive off of food aid, which is slowly but surely starting to vanish in light of the Houthi Coalition Blockades. Cemeteries in Aden overflow as a result of patients that could’ve received basic life-saving treatment being turned away due to overflowing hospital beds. "We are overwhelmed. We were obliged to refuse patients because we didn't have enough oxygen and medical staff to be able to treat the patients. So, it's very heart-breaking." said Caroline Seguin, Yemen operations manager for Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF). Yemen also recently recorded the highest daily virus tally, making it a hotspot of the pandemic.

CHOLERA OUTBREAK

In the midst of what the United Nations has deemed the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, the largest and fastest spreading Cholera outbreak in epidemiologically recorded history has surfaced in the Republic of Yemen.

DID YOU KNOW?

Cholera, caused by toxigenic strains of Vibrio cholerae is characterized by acute diarrhea leading to severe dehydration. Antibiotic therapy shortens the duration of diarrhea, the excessive use contributed to the emergence of resistance in V. cholerae.

Endemic cholera denotes the repeated occurrence of cholera in a population over time, without the need for exogenous reintroduction of the pathogen. Practically speaking, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines a cholera-endemic population as one that has experienced cholera in at least 3 of the past 5 years.

As a matter of fact, in January 2020 alone, the Ministry of Public Health and Population of Yemen reported a total 35,512 suspected cholera cases including 13 related deaths (case fatality rate: 0.04%) from 22 governorates. The 5 governorates with the highest cumulative attack rate per 10,000 are Amran (1710.53), Al Mahwit (1610.21), Sana’a (1554.18), Al Bayda (1272.87), and Al Hudaydah (1065.71). The national attack rate is 813.13 per 10,000. The governorates with the highest number of deaths are Hajjah (577), Ibb (507), Al Hudaydah (402), and Taizz (329).

The cumulative number of suspected cholera cases reported in Yemen from October 2016 to January 2020 is 2,316,197 including 3,910 related deaths with a case fatality rate of approximately 0.17%. This total dwarfs the next largest epidemic on record (following the 2010 Haiti earthquake; ~800,000 cases) by nearly a factor of 3. During the second wave alone, which began on 27th April 2017, the number of suspected cholera cases were 2 290 370 including 3781 related deaths.

How could an outbreak of this degree occur? Before the crisis began, almost 50% of all children under the age of 5 were stunted, a heavy indication of acute malnutrition. WaSH[Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene] infrastructure was limited, and that which existed against water-borne diseases was destroyed to a large extent by the bombings that began in March 2015. Over the past few years, key infrastructure in Yemen has been destroyed, thus further reducing its capacity to prevent and cure Cholera.The main port of Yemen, Al-Hudeydah, was bombed and later blocked, disrupting the supply of aid and supplies into the country. In addition, the bridge that used to serve as the main supply route to the capital, Sana’a, has been bombed repeatedly, and so have hospitals and other medical facilities.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has estimated that “16 million [people] lack access to safe water and sanitation, and 16.4 million lack access to adequate healthcare”

Hence, it is reasonable to infer that the collapse of infrastructure and escalation of such conflicts is the major cause for this widespread and gigantic outbreak

In conclusion, the outbreak highlights the importance for international humanitarian health organizations to have a continuous discussion about whether and to what extent they should increase their focus on pre-emptively addressing the environmental determinants of communicable diseases in humanitarian emergencies. Strong advocacy from the public health community for peace and the protection of human health, by bringing to attention the public health impacts of armed conflict and keeping the world’s political leaders accountable to their actions, will remain crucial.

FLOODS

Natural disasters have an infamous reputation of turning huge populations into mere numbers of a statistic and even the strongest of countries into powerless victims. Yemen, in around mid-April of 2020, fell victim to brutally heavy rains and flash floods. The immense overflow of water has damaged roads, bridges and the electricity grid in addition to contaminating irrigational bodies and barring service of basic needs to the people in the Marib, Sana’a and Hajjah Governorates.

However, conditions are getting progressively harder for the thousands of families already displaced facing loss of shelter, food rations and household supplies. An estimated 4,764 households have been affected in Internally displaced people (IDPs) sites in central and southern governorates. Those are inclusive of the 1,812 families in Aden, 1,037 in Abyan, 917 in Taizz and 770 in Lahj governorates. Unfortunately, these numbers are on a steady rise.

Fatalities join the ever-growing list of casualties and displacements. The flash floods recorded in Aden and Sana’a with a death toll of 14 and 9 respectively hiked the national death toll to at least 21 Yemeni citizens. Yemen even deemed Aden to be a “Disaster Area” with countless roads submerged, 24-hour lack of electricity, continuous heavy down-pours and a record 125mm of rainfall. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) declared their trust in the heightened risk of diseases such as Cholera and Malaria as one of the many aftermaths of the floods in Yemen.