Yemen: The Invisible Humanitarian Crisis

How does one quantify indescribable pain of intense loss? Escalating casualties? Dwindling statistics of infants surviving past five? The Yemeni poet, Sana Uqba, implores her readers to see her country as more than simply a statistic; an isolated death toll. 

“It is easy to just read '10,000 killed' without feeling any sort of emotion, because 10,000 is just a really large number. As humans, we cannot connect with numbers, we connect with people, faces, names, stories.”

In light of this, rather than portraying this crisis through the lens of statistics and dehumanizing numbers, it will be painted as a story of the millions of lives altered by the misuse of political power.

The origins of this humanitarian crisis can be traced back to the polarized political climate of Yemen birthed from long standing religious and geographic divides. Before the amalgamation of the country in 1990, Yemen had been divided into the northern Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). Consequently, both regions developed distinct cultures and religious affiliations with the Sunnis occupying the southern region and the Shias occupying the northern and central regions.

The union of the country only deepened tensions between these starkly different regions. These tensions resulted in the rise of political Islam through political factions such as the Zaidi Houthis of the North. The country of Yemen was ruled by President Ali Abdullah Saleh from 1999 to 2011. He was the leader of the General People’s Congress political party and strongly supported by Sunni political leaders. In a series of rebellions across the Middle East referred to as the Arab Spring of 2010 and 2011, Yemeni rebel groups revolted against the Saleh government due to the rampant corruption and misuse of power. These rebellions resulted in the abdication of Saleh and the establishment of an interim government led by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, a Sunni Muslim.

The political instability created by this change of government provided the ideal opportunity for the consolidation of power by the Houthis. The religious and economic situation of the Yemen conflict transformed it from a civil to a proxy war as it invited foreign intervention through the involvement of major countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the United States. Due to the religious affiliations and personal economic ambitions of these countries, a twisted alliance system arose within the conflict. One alliance includes the Houthi rebel group and Saleh’s militia with the support of the Shia dominated Iran. Contrastingly, an attempted overthrow of the Hadi government in 2014 by the Houthis resulted in the creation of a counter alliance led by Sunni dominated Saudi Arabia intervening to suppress Houthi rebel groups and reinstate the internationally recognized government.

The coalition’s attempts at eliminating the threat of the Houthis through air and sea blockades and military airstrikes crippled the livelihood of innocent citizens. Blockades prevented the transport of food and medical supplies into the towns and villages, resulting in mass famine. According to the UNHCR, the effects of these blockades and other contributing factors of war have resulted in 53% of the Yemen population being on the brink of starvation.

By the coalition choosing to target the citizens, rebel groups have only gained greater support amongst the youth who have become desperate for change. The participation of child soldiers is no longer a choice but a reality of survival as they make up 20-40% of the rebel militia. Twisted roads that used to lead to bustling markets have now become minefields with mines of an estimated 1 million in number, preventing safe travel across the country. However, mothers are forced to risk their lives navigating war-torn areas to bring their children to medical clinics as malnutrition has become a rite of passage and famine has even stripped away their ability to breastfeed. Yet even areas not occupied by the coalition are densely populated and contaminated by an absence of a sewage system, producing high rates of cholera in already dwindling communities. The cholera crisis has escalated to unprecedented levels affecting over 1.1 million Yemenis and has become one of the largest cholera epidemics in history.

Amidst this adversity, corruption and greed remain. The livelihoods of the people are only a second thought to members of the coalition who each have their own agenda for this war. Rather than focusing on bringing about peace, members such as the UAE have secretly begun supporting Southern Sunni separatist groups to consolidate power in the southern region. By doing so, the UAE has derailed the coalition efforts of eliminating the Houthis and created further divide in the country. In exchange for control in the Middle East, the United States has funded and armed the coalition, with ⅓ of their targets being public areas such as hospitals and schools. In the name of preventing Shia Iranian expansion, Saudi Arabia along with the rest of the coalition have orchestrated the deaths of thousands and the starvation of millions. Yet the voices of these victims have been made silent, only the images of starving children on the internet are left to tell their stories.

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Nilukshi ChenInternational