Over the past year, the COVID-19 outbreak has been a devastating force to nations all over the world, narrowly sparing only countries that took swift and decisive action. The pandemic has had an especially overwhelming impact on Yemen, currently experiencing what the United Nations (UN) coined before the pandemic the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, which has now been in a state of a bloody civil war for six years.
The deadly conflict began in 2011, when the Arab Spring, a wave of protests against dictatorship across the Arab world, inspired Yemenis to protest Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s long time President. One of the biggest protests came from the Houthis, a minority Zaydi Shiite movement originating from northwestern Yemen. Saleh was forced to give power to his former Vice President, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. This transition of power to Hadi was unsuccessful, as Hadi failed to maintain stability in the region. As mentioned in an article by BBC, “Hadi struggled to deal with various problems including militant attacks, corruption, food insecurity, and continuing loyalty of many military officers to Saleh.”
The Houthis rebelled once again after the UN sponsored attempts to form a plan outlining the future of the country. Extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and Daesh took advantage of the widespread instability in the country to make territorial gains. Further complicating matters, the Houthis, who previously had made attempts to topple former President Saleh, formed an alliance with him and his substantial military support, lacking their own military resources. Together they successfully took over the capital Sana’a and eventually forced Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia, where suspicion arose that Iran was supporting the rebels and spreading their influence in the region. In response, a coalition was formed to construct a blockade around Sana’a and begin an airstrike campaign aimed at flushing the Houthis out.
Since then, the conflict has gotten more violent and complex as international players have begun to pursue their own interests in the region. BBC adds that “the conflict escalated dramatically in March 2015, when Saudi Arabia and eight other mostly Sunni Arab states—backed by the US, UK, and France—began air strikes against the Houthis, with the declared aim of restoring Mr. Hadi’s government.” These nations have supplied weapons and intelligence to Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia has become the US government’s largest arms buyer.
As the conflict becomes more complex and more sides have emerged, Yemen’s civilians are bearing the consequences of years at war and human rights violations. Amnesty International, a human rights non-governmental organization (NGO), has documented 42 Saudi-led coalition airstrikes targeting civilian areas by “hitting homes, schools, hospitals, markets, mosques, weddings and funerals,” killing hundreds of men, women, and children. Amnesty has stated that Houthis have excessively shelled and used imprecise weapons in residential areas, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. In total, airstrikes have killed and wounded around 18,000 Yemeni civilians.
Prior to the war, Yemen had already been one of the poorest Arab countries, but the seemingly endless conflict has decimated the country. Without a stable government and surrounded by constant violence, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 24.1 million people in Yemen are in need of humanitarian or protection support. With the first confirmed COVID case in April, the pandemic has added yet another existential threat to Yemen. Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher Afra Nasser states that UN epidemiological predictions estimate 16 million Yemenis could be infected by COVID. While the current number of confirmed cases is around 2000 (with about 600 deaths), it is impossible to know the actual figure with the limited testing capacity. With 17.8 million Yemenis in need of safe drinking water and sanitation combined with malnutrition and millions of suspected cholera cases, Yemen is the ideal breeding ground for the virus. To make things worse, the HRW has described that “The Houthis have severely hampered and diverted international aid in areas under their control,” as well as hid the impacts of COVID-19 in their territories.
Doctors and medical supplies are spread extremely thin. As described by Nasser, many medical professionals have fled Yemen fearing their safety because “parties to the conflict have targeted not only medical facilities but also medical personnel, as health workers have been threatened, injured, abducted, detained and killed.” As seen in an article by the Brookings Institute, 20 percent of the 333 districts in Yemen have no doctors, and there are only 500 ventilators and 700 intensive care unit beds. Due to loss of UN funding, “30 of 41 major UN programs in Yemen will close in the next few weeks if additional funding is not available.” In short, conditions are desperate. To create a sustainable solution, the war in Yemen must stop being fueled by outside powers. However, bystanders at home can also help by donating to the Yemen fund of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and by writing to respective Congress representatives concerning the US involvement in this crisis.