Published in the Jerusalem Post, 14 April 2025
Yemen is at the epicenter of national and international
interests at odds with each other and battling for supremacy. At the heart of the turmoil is Iran,
financing and weaponizing the Houthis in order to establish both a strong Shia
presence on the Arabian peninsula, and a continued front against Israel to
replace the weakened Hezbollah and Hamas.
The burden of suffering has fallen on the hapless people of Yemen. They continue to bear the human cost.
Today’s catastrophe started in the sadly misnamed “Arab spring” uprisings of 2011. Inside Yemen they resulted in mass protests against the long dictatorial rule of its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. He was forced to step down in favor of his vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. In 2015 Hadi sponsored a revised constitution for Yemen that proposed a federal system split between northerners and southerners, but the Iran-backed Houthi rebels rejected it.
The Houthis are a fundamentalist Shia group. The ex-president, Saleh, although a Sunni Muslim, decided to collaborate with them in a bid to return to power. It was through Saleh that the Houthis were able to gain control of most of the Yemeni military, including its air force. As a result, and supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, they overran large tracts of the country, including the capital city, Sana’a.
Saudi Arabia, determined to
prevent Iran from gaining a foothold on the Arabian peninsula, formed a
coalition to support Hadi’s government, and intervened in March 2015 to beat
back the Houthis. The internal struggle for power has continued ever since.
A significant moment came in April
2020, when a body calling itself the Southern Transitional Council (STC) was
formed, declaring that south Yemen was breaking away from the national
government and would henceforth rule itself.
This unilateral declaration did
not come out of the blue. Back in 1967 South
Yemen became an independent communist state backed by the USSR. It was only in 1990, with the imminent
collapse of the Soviet Union, that South Yemen agreed to unite with the north
to form the Unified Republic of Yemen.
The utter chaos within the country
provided those so minded with a golden opportunity to restore an independent
South Yemen. Since then a UN-engineered truce between the warring parties was
achieved but never renewed, Yemen has staggered on, much of its people
subsisting in abject poverty.
Three main groups are fighting
each other – the Houthis, the internationally recognized government, and the
STC – but other smaller bodies are also involved including local militias,
tribal forces, remnants of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS.
Since Hamas’s bloody assault into Israel on October 7, 2023 Yemen has also become the base for the Houthis’ military effort in support of Hamas. At Iran’s behest, the Houthis virtually declared war on October 19, 2023, when they launched missiles and armed drones at Israel. They have since attacked dozens of merchant and naval vessels in the Red Sea that they declare, often erroneously, to have some connection with Israel.
On March 25 the UN children’s
agency (UNICEF) pinpointed precisely this Houthi-controlled western coastal
area of Yemen as being on the verge of a catastrophe due to the lack of food
and water.
“Half of all children under five
are acutely malnourished,” UNICEF official Peter Hawkins told reporters. “Among
them, over 537,000 suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM)—a condition that
is agonizing. Equally alarming, 1.4
million pregnant and lactating women are malnourished, perpetuating a vicious
cycle of intergenerational suffering.”
The next day Yemen’s looming disaster
was highlighted by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which warned of a
widening chasm between rising humanitarian needs and the funding needed to
alleviate them.
The IRC,
founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, is a global humanitarian
organization that provides emergency aid, long-term assistance, and advocacy
for refugees and displaced people worldwide.
The IRC estimates that in 2025
some 19.5 million people in Yemen will need humanitarian assistance and
protection – 7% more than in 2024. Yet,
it emphasizes, the humanitarian response remains critically underfunded. The
estimated humanitarian budget of $2.47 billion is just 5% funded so far.
In 2024, just over half of what
was required was actually delivered, forcing aid agencies to scale back
essential support such as food distribution, and limit access to clean water
and other services.
Caroline Sekyewa, IRC’s Country
Director in Yemen, said: “For ten years, Yemenis have endured relentless
conflict, economic collapse, and limited access to lifesaving health and
nutrition services. Humanitarian aid has been their lifeline. For donor
governments to consider reducing or removing that support is not just
short-sighted, but puts millions of lives at risk... After a decade of crisis,
political solutions and economic recovery are now needed more than ever to
secure long-term stability. Yet the fact is that today, aid is what stands
between life and death for millions."
So the IRC is calling for renewed
donor support to match the scale of the need.
“2025 must be a turning point in
this crisis,” said Sekyewa, “ With needs steadily increasing, we call upon all
donors to step up and ensure that this year’s humanitarian needs and response
plan is fully funded.”
Meanwhile UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, continues his efforts to establish a lasting ceasefire in Yemen.
In January 2025, his office conducted a series of political dialogues in Aden involving civil society representatives, political parties, and other actors to foster an inclusive peace process. Nothing of substance was achieved.
In January 2024, the Security
Council issued a resolution demanding that the Houthis cease their attacks on
international shipping in the Red Sea. After continued violations, Grundberg
urged the Security Council in October 2024 to unite in halting the attacks. A
second resolution followed in January 2025. Both resolutions were ignored
Yemen, a country spread across the
base of the Arabian peninsula, was described by the Romans as “Arabia Felix” –
happy, fortunate Arabia – an epithet that would certainly not apply in more
modern times. Its present situation, and
that of its population, is dire.
Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Yemeni people continue to bear burden of weaponization of Houthis", 14 April 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-849767
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