When mention of the Middle East arises, the image conjured in the minds of many include diverse, colorful markets and elaborate temples, like a scene out of the movie Aladdin. Some think of Egypt and its mummies, some of towering skyscrapers in Dubai, or even of dangers in Syria, Iraq, and Iran. But few will recall Yemen, a country once rich in culture and beauty, now buried under ash and gunpowder in the memory of humanity. This must change.
In order to fully understand the situation in Yemen, the events are perhaps best laid out in a timeline. One can begin in the year 1990, when North and South Yemen united to become the country known on the map today. The two states had believed in different forms of government, among other things.
Despite their reunification, the conflict between North and South was far from over.
The Houthis are a group of anarchic and anti-government rebels who run rampant in Yemen. For years they have engaged in local conflict, but the climax was in 2011, when Houthi protestors around the country sought to remove the American and Saudi-Arabian supported leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Yielding to the people, Saleh ceded his power to his deputy, Abdrubbah Mansour Hadi.
However, under Hadi’s short rule, terrorist attacks in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, and food insecurity around the country inspired the Houthis to completely overrun the capital in late 2014. This sparked the beginning of the civil war that would plague Yemen for years to come.
In 2015, a Saudi-Arabian led coalition of nine countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, agreed to bomb Houthi positions in the South. They hoped to force the rebels out of the country and reinstate the legitimate government under Hadi, who had been taking refuge in Saudi Arabia at the time. The Saudis were under the impression that the war would only last for a few weeks. However, it only began to escalate in conjunction with the involvement of the other countries in the coalition.
Unfortunately, this political escalation would affect civilian lives more than anyone could predict.
On October 8, 2016, Saudi Arabia used American bombs on a funeral ceremony in Sana’a, killing 140 people and injuring at least 500 more. Humanitarians around the world were outraged, and Washington was deeply embarrassed, yet persisted in support of the continual bombings. Naji Hussein, a soldier who was visiting his family in Sana’a, recalls the horrors of wartime Yemen. He describes empty and abandoned fields, rising food prices, and a paranoid state of mind, saying, “We live in fear. We hear the airplanes and we don’t know when the next attack is going to be.”
Hussein’s family was not the only one suffering; according to the United Nations, more than 3.5 million people have been forced to flee from their homes, and the charity organization, Save the Children, states that “for every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death and it’s entirely preventable.” Yemen had been struggling with food insecurity and lack of a reliable water source since before the civil war, and it only worsened once any semblance of government stability was removed. Meanwhile, the start of 2017 saw a severe cholera outbreak due to poor sanitation and a lack of necessary and available medical facilities.
In December of 2018, a ceasefire was discussed by both parties in Sweden, but was broken only minutes after being put into effect. Talks of a ceasefire have since persisted since April 2020, seemingly without any outcomes. The incessant disarray of the country has left it vulnerable to occupation by several extremist groups, such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, both of whom have carried out attacks in South Yemen.
Analysis has seen that interior conflict in Yemen is related to disagreeing sects of Islam, but this may be an oversimplified explanation of the civil war. It is unclear but likely that the Houthis are being supported by Iran.
Today, 24 million people in Yemen, which constitutes about 80% of the population, is in need of humanitarian help according to UNICEF. Approximately half of this populus are children. With COVID-19 being the latest struggle for Yemeni citizens, only half of medical facilities are currently functioning, and those that do lack basic equipment, such as masks, gloves, and oxygen. This year, 2.3 million children under the age of five are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition, a fraction of whom will not survive because of the absence of urgent assistance.
In order to help, people can donate to reliable organizations like UNICEF, but what is perhaps equally as valuable is knowledge. The crisis in Yemen is so desperate and intense, yet there is little to no representation of it in the media. The events described in this very article are likely unknown to a majority of the public, which is why aid is so scarce. One cannot help solve a problem if they are not aware of it in the first place; therefore, it is the responsibility of those who are graced with this knowledge to spread it and prevent the suffering in Yemen from being buried under ash and gunpowder today and in the textbooks of unsuspecting high school students for generations to come.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Written by: Volunteer Rachel Girgis Date Published: 05/25/2021 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCES:
Hincks, Joseph. "What You Need to Know About the Crisis in Yemen." Time, TIME USA, 3 Nov. 2016, time.com/4552712/yemen-war-humanitarian-crisis-famine/. Accessed 2 May 2021.
"What's Happening in Yemen?" BBC Newsround, BBC, 3 Aug. 2020, www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/38317367. Accessed 2 May 2021.
"Yemen Crisis." UNICEF, www.unicef.org/emergencies/yemen-crisis#:~:text=Yemen%20is%20the%20largest%20humanitarian%20crisis%20in%20the%20world%2C%20with,hell%20for%20the%20country%27s%20children.
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