By Katie Dominy
According to the UN, there are approximately 24 million Yemenis currently in need of help. Conflict and destruction have displaced around 4 million people, and an estimated 100,000 people have been killed over the course of the past five years.
Internationally, we hear the term ‘humanitarian crisis’ ascribed to Yemen – and rightly so. We see donation appeals on television, we hear human rights lawyers deploring the country’s living conditions, and stark warnings of escalating violence fly past the front pages of global news outlets.
Amidst these reports, it is all too easy to lose track of how this conflict actually began, and which groups are involved. This month, The International breaks the conflict down to its key components to try and make sense of this ongoing disaster.
The Arab Spring
The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ – waves of protest across the Middle East and North Africa demanding democratic reform – began in Tunisia at around the start of 2011. Inspired by the Tunisian revolution, Yemini citizens and opposition parties took to the streets demanding change. At that time, President Ali Abdullah Saleh had led the Republic of Yemen for more than thirty years, and accusations of corruption, human rights violations, and lack of democratic process were widespread.
Some protests attracted hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, and the University of Sanaa (Yemen’s capital city) witnessed protestors camping outside its building for months on end. However, scenes soon turned violent; for example, in March 2011, around fifty protestors were murdered by snipers in Sanaa. Even Saleh himself was badly injured when, in June of the same year, missiles fired by opposition groups struck the presidential palace.
After months of unrest, Saleh stepped down and officially transferred power to his vice president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, in February 2012. After his departure from office, the UN Security Council discovered that Saleh had embezzled between $32 billion and $60 billion by corrupt means over the course of his presidency.
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Internal Political Struggles
At the start of the Arab Spring, 40% of Yemenis survived on less than $2 per day. Naturally, Yemen’s deeply-rooted social challenges did not disappear as soon as Saleh left power. High unemployment rates, a lingering culture of corruption, and problems securing enough food for the country’s 30 million citizens remained constant features.
Furthermore, the government’s political legitimacy was being challenged by jihadist groups, as well as a familiar opponent. The Houthi movement – an Islamic, armed political group claiming to represent the country’s Shia Muslim minority – had been a long-standing opponent of Saleh. They had engaged in armed conflict with Saleh’s government forces on many occasions since the 1990s, especially when Saleh strengthened Yemen’s ties to Saudi Arabia and the US. The Houthis outwardly criticised Saleh’s corruption, as well as his perceived welcoming of foreign influence in Yemeni affairs. However, after the Arab Spring they were also against Hadi’s plans to establish semi-autonomous, federal provinces in Yemen, as they felt they weren’t granted enough power in their northern heartland.
For the Houthis, the enemy of their enemy became their friend. In secret, they began to collaborate with Saleh, their former enemy, in order to overthrow Hadi. Saleh wanted a seat at the table again, and large swathes of Yemen’s military still supported the former leader. Even many Sunni citizens began to support the Houthis due to widespread disappointment in Hadi’s leadership. Their combined force was sufficient; between September and October 2014, the Houthi-Saleh alliance seized control of most of Sanaa. In February 2015, the Houthis ousted the government and took control. The following month, Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia.
Regional Dynamics and International Involvement
Once the Houthis secured control of Sanaa, direct flights between the city and Tehran (the capital of Iran) were established. Iranian officials also guaranteed cheap oil deals for Yemen. Although the Houthis have denied accusations that Iran provided them with direct strategic or military assistance, the public discourse of Tehran officials has been staunchly pro-Houthi. Other states in the Middle East (notably Saudi Arabia) looked on with concern. For Saudi Arabia, the idea of a Houthi-Iranian collaboration seemed extremely threatening, both ideologically and militarily. Saudi Arabia has historically bad blood with the Houthis, and Iran (a majority Shia state) is a long-standing regional rival of the Kingdom (a majority Sunni state). The potential combination of these two Shia forces gaining territorial control in the Arabian Peninsula was met with alarm.
In March 2015, Saudi Arabia formed a coalition with eight other Sunni-majority states from the region, and launched airstrikes targeting Houthi strongholds. Human rights groups have deplored the tactics adopted by this coalition, citing the high death toll of civilians as missiles struck schools, hospitals, and residential areas. The Houthis have responded to airstrikes by firing missiles into Saudi territory, and they have also been accused of committing war crimes within Yemen.
Saudi allies from the West have intervened; the US, UK, and France have all supported the Saudi-led coalition in intelligence gathering. The Saudi Air Force fly British and American planes, and all three states have sold billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Ongoing Instability
Fast-forward to 2020, and five years of coalition airstrikes and in-fighting have devastated Yemen. The UN estimates that around 10 million Yemenis are on the verge of famine. The largest outbreak of cholera in history has also affected over 2.2 million people, and attention is now shifting to the spread of Covid-19. The Houthis remain in control of Sanaa and much of north-western Yemen. Saleh was killed by Houthi fighters in December 2017, after he switched allegiance and openly supported the Saudi-led coalition. Hadi’s government forces are now based in the southern port city of Aden, with Hadi remaining in Saudi Arabia. Terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State are also present in Yemen, utilising the political unrest to further their own goals. It is reported that Saudi officials wish to withdraw from the conflict, and instead protect their own territory against Houthi attacks. Whether the coalition halt their airstrikes or not, the immediate future for Yemen remains, at its core, the same: fragmented, contested, and wholly unstable.
Katie Dominy is The International’s Middle East correspondent.