UCLA
Remote Sensing
Vegetation Change
Vegetation Change
Vegetation Change
A Brief History of the Yemen War
"The worst humanitarian crisis in the world"
-European Union (EU)
While Yemen Civil War is largely a battle between the Yemeni Government and the separatist militant group the Houthis, it is very important to have a basic understanding of the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran in order to fully grasp the issue. While the two states have never engaged in a war directly, both have played many roles in various proxy wars in the Middle East in order to gain more power and influence in the region. With Saudi Arabia backing the Yemeni government and Iran secretly backing the Houthi movement, the war in Yemen has become one of the most violent and gruesome humanitarian aid catastrophes in recent years. With this limited knowledge in mind, we can really trace the roots of this war four years to 2014 when former President Ali Abdullah Saleh handed the power to current President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Hadi is inaugurated as president and an opposition group forms. The group of northern rebels is known as the Houthi or Ansar Allah (Partisans of God). They adhere to a branch of Shia Islam known as Zaidism.
President Hadi has failed in many aspects of his authoritarian rule, but especially in dealing with attacks from al-Qaeda and his handling of a separatist group known as the Houthis. The Houthis had been fighting with the Yemeni government the decade earlier but gained support at the start of 2015 in part due to the transition of power. With this slight wave of support from some of the Yemeni people, the militarized Houthi forces overtook the capital of Sanaa with the plans to mobilize southward and take over the entire country. It is believed by most that the Houthis are a Shia Iranian backed separatist group. With Saudi Arabia not only being a mostly Sunni Arab state, but also the most influential player in the area, they quickly backed the Yemeni government and also received support from western powers including the United States.
Shortly after the Houthis took control of the capital Sana’a in late 2014 and President Hadi fled the country to the southern stronghold of Adem and has not returned since. Saudi Arabia intervened with a coalition that was comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan Morocco, Senegal Sudan and more. The Saudi government has been backed by the United States ad the United Kingdom which have aided in both logistics and funding. While the Iranian government claims they have had no role in the war, the United States says it has intercepted shipments to the Houthi movement.
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Attacks and bombings have been carried out by the Saudi coalition, as well as Al Queda and ISIL. At the start of the war, the Houtis had taken control of most of the major cities in Yemen including Sana’a, al-Hudaydah, Taiz, and Aden. Saudi Arabia and the rest of the coalition sent troops to the southern port town of Aden to slowly try and regain territory for the Yemeni government. Since then, the coalition has
struggled at trying to push the coalition back. Houthis still have control over some areas in Taiz as well as al-Hudaydah. While neither side has complete control over the cities, the Houthis are still able to cause massive damage to Saudi Arabia by firing missiles and mortars from Taiz to just over the border into Saudi Arabia. Over 10,000 Yemeni have been killed from the fighting.
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Jihadist extremist groups have also taken advantage of the civil unrest in the air. Both al-Qaeda and ISIS have set up territories within Yemen's borders. They have also carried out numerous deadly attacks throughout the country trying to gain more territory and support. Neither the Houthi or the Yemeni government have been able to fight these two groups due to their own discrepancies with each other.
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Within the past year, Saudi Arabia has really tightened the air, land, and sea blockade it is enforcing on Yemen. This tightening down came after the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, had undergone a missile launch. While Saudi Arabia claims that the blockade is to prevent the smuggling of Iranian weapons, the UN has said that this blockade would trigger “the largest famine the world has seen for many decades”. Since January, another group broke off from the Yemeni government called the Southern Transitional Council. Some of the coalition is more closely aligned with this group but the Saudi government continues to back President Hadi.
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The Saudi led coalition's (Operation Restoring Hope) aerial bombing campaign in Yemen against the Houthi insurgency has been targeting Yemeni agricultural fields and infrastructure since the beginning of the war. This has caused what could become "the worst famine in the world in 100 years." The United Nation reports that 13 million Yemeni civilians face starvation. The
United Nations claims that this is “the world's worst man-made humanitarian disaster.” 22.2 million Yemeni people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. 17.8 million Yemeni people do not know how they will get their next meals and severe acute
malnutrition is threatening the lives of nearly half a million children under the age of five. With Yemen only having a population of 26 million people; they are in desperate need of assistance and must have a steady food supply.
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Moreover, water availability has decreased since the start of the war. Collapsing health, water and sanitation systems have cut off 14.5 million people from regular access to clean water and sanitation. This has devastating effects for the Yemeni people. Access to clean water is crucial to health and safety. With this, the destruction of Yemen's infrastructure and sanitation systems has led to a massive cholera outbreak starting in 2016. Officials report 2,100 dead from the outbreak with 900,000 others affected. This outbreak is still ongoing today with 613,000 confirmed cases. The war and outbreak is still ongoing today despite US and UN efforts. The Yemen War has also come to be known as the "forgotten war" as about 75% of the population are in need of humanitarian assistance
United Nations Report
Global Report on Food Crises 2018
