Table of Contents

1.Introduction-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------03

2. Civilian Fatalities-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------05

3. Foreign Countries involved in Yemen’s War-------------------------------------------------------- 06

4. The Human Cost------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------07

5. What Triggered the war?------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 08

     5.1 The Background of Yemen------------------------------------------------------------------------08

    5.2 Causes of the Civil War in Yemen----------------------------------------------------------------09

   5.3 The Intervention from Other Supremacies--------------------------------------------------------11

  5.4 Why the War is Still Ongoing? ---------------------------------------------------------------------13

  5.5 How the Yemen Civil War Might end?------------------------------------------------------------15

References ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------18

The Civil War in Yemen

Introduction of The Civil War in Yemen

In Western Asia, at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, the Republic of Yemen exists. In the peninsula, it is ranked as the second largest state of the Arab sovereign. In the north of the Yemen is the Saudi Arabia, in the west is the Red sea, in the south is the Gulf of Aden & Guardafui Channel and in the east to the Yemen is the Oman & the Arabian Sea. More than 200 islands are encompassed by the Yemen’s territory. It also includes the largest island of Middle East i.e., Socotra. Yemen has the membership with the Arab League as well as United Nations etc.

In March 2015, Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi as the president of Yemen was enforced to run away from the country by the Houthi revolutionaries. The Zaidi Shia Houthis have been getting back up from the members of the military in Yemen who claim their loyalty to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former president of Yemen. As a consequence, Saudi Arabia presented its respond by forming a union of various other countries to get international support in accordance with the effort of restoring the power of Yemen’s government. The union has also included the states of (Oman was an exception of it), Sudan, and Egypt. The union was also getting support from both the United Kingdom and also the United States of America. So far, for four years above, ever since the Saudi-led campaign has established, the country seems to step far distance away from peace. The cabinet of government in Yemen which recognized worldwide nowadays has led by Ma’in Abdulmalek as the Prime Minister who governs the country from Aden’s anchorage city which has assigned as the temporary capital city of Yemen.

Almost all of the northern highlands in Yemen along with Sanaa (the real capital city) endure to be under the supremacy of the Houthis along with their alliances, notwithstanding the extraordinary downfall of the Houthi-Saleh coalition in December 2017, which actually led the death of Saleh and thus, has prompted numbers of his main allies to take part in the war contrary to the Houthis. Along with this ongoing war, the conditions and situations in Yemen consistently to get worsen. There are many appearances of damaged infrastructures, the ruin of industrial capacity, along with the humanitarian crisis, all are edging on the way to scarcity. In addition to this catastrophe, some areas nowadays that under the supremacy of the worldwide accepted government are torn apart with uncertainty.

The Saudi-led union has consistently moved on its campaign against the backup made by Iran for the Houthi revolutionaries. As a result, lots of dense civilian fatalities occur in the country. The union has also launched a main aggressive strike in June 2018, with a purpose to take back the seaside region of Hodeida which resulted in the worst condition of humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Actually, in the year of 2018, the United Nations also has appointed a new superior representative for Yemen with its main purpose to become a negotiator of a cease-fire. However, it seems that the approach was not getting any good results. In fact, the Houthis gave respond to the airstrikes made by Saudi Arabia with sending heavy missile attacks on the infrastructure and also territory of Saudi which also included the damages of its oil tankers, various facilities in the country, as well as the international airports. More confounding conflict of this civil war came up from the secessionist in south of Yemen (reinforced by the United Arab Emirates) which have jarred with the UN-accepted government armed forces in Aden (Day 2012).

Civilian Fatalities of The Civil War in Yemen

This civil war has been presenting high numbers of civilian fatalities. A report came in March 2018 even has mentioned that about, at least,  of people in Yemen had to face death due to this war, and also stated for above than  fatalities in general. The worst thing from this, even though there is a difficulty in getting accurate info regarding the death cases, but the organization named Save The Children has calculated around a minimum  of children have died throughout 2017, which could be average that about  of children died on every single day. Regarding the state made by , the airstrikes made by the Saudi-led union was behind the death incidents of nearly two-thirds of civilians in the country. On the other hand, the Houthis are the ones who have been alleged of the huge civilian fatalities which come as a result of their blockade of Taiz, the third-biggest city in Yemen.

Due this massive civil war, an estimation from  or OCHA has calculated that about above than 3 million people of Yemen have fled away from their homes to other places in the country, with about  of them have search for refuge from other countries, counting Somalia and also Djibouti as well. This internally evacuated people of Yemen every so often has to experience insufficient shelter along with a shortage of food in other countries. At the same time, the Yemenis who have not fled out of the country also have to suffer as well, especially the people who really need healthcare (Bonnefoy 2018).

Foreign Countries involved in Yemen’s War

This civil war located in Yemen, indeed, has made many countries in whole over the world take part in this massive war. As mentioned above, Saudi Arabia has even formed a union of many countries in Arab regions such as Egypt, Sudan, Kuwait, Morocco, etc. In consequence, some of these countries have delivered the troops to take part in this civil war. In addition to this, some other countries included in this union have only sent some air attacks to Yemen. Other than this, the government of the US has been launching numbers of air attacks on a regular basis to fight  and also  targets. The country has even currently convinced that it plans to deploy a small number of troops to take part in the war as well (Abdi 2016).

Furthermore, the United States which united with other western power countries like France and the United Kingdom has also facilitated the supply of weapons and intelligence meant for the Saudi-led union. Even though Iran has repudiated the fact the country has been arming the Houthi revolutionaries, but the military forces of the United States declared that the country has interrupted the weapons deliveries from Iran which assigned to Yemen in 2018. The United States even added that that was the third time that this occurrence has appeared within two months. Adding this, some government officers from Iran have also proposed that they might deliver military mentors to back up the Houthi revolutionaries (Orkaby, Beyond the Arab Cold War: The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68 2017).

The Human Cost of The Civil War in Yemen

In brief, Yemen has been experiencing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis made by human itself. A report from the UN has stated that minimum of  citizens have been killed in this civil war, and counting as well about  citizens who have injured in the war ever since March 2015. From these numbers, the UN added that about  of citizens died due to the airstrikes made by the Saudi-led union. In the meantime, the US-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project as a worldwide organization that has been tracking this civil war assumes that the death toll is further beyond than this number. In fact, based on the reports came from various news of every violence incident, there are above 67,650 civilians have been executed ever since January 2016. Plus, there are thousands civilians also have died from various avoidable causes such as poor health, diseases, and malnutrition which triggered by this civil war. Around  or  of the Yemenis need humanitarian protection and support. In fact, there are about  of Yemenis need support regarding their food, and nearly  citizens are only a step away from scarcity. Worst, around 240,000 of Yemenis are experiencing catastrophic stages of hunger due to this civil war (bbc.com 2019).

Adding the list, there are 3 million Yemenis which 2 million of them are children, who are in an acute starving condition and make them become more defenseless to serious diseases. An estimation also mentioned that  children who have this acute starving condition might have died from 2015 to 2018. The fact that there are only half of  medical facilities in the country that really functioning has made millions of citizens to have lack access to sufficient healthcare. In actual fact, nearly about  citizens do not even have access to any adequate public health or clean water. Subsequently, the medics have to struggle in handling the biggest cholera outbreak that ever verified in the world, which has led to above than  alleged health cases and also  associated deaths ever since April 2017. Hence, from these statistics, we can assume that this civil war in Yemen has been presenting the biggest human cost across the world (Blumi 2018).

5.      What Triggered the War?

The Background of Yemen

Despite the fact that the original concept of Yemen as a different territory that exist before Islam, and it has infrequently been under the supremacy of an exclusive government. Yemen itself, for the past decades was split into the southern  or PDRY on one side, while at the other side is the northern  or YAR. However, later on, in the year of 1990, both sides were unified. The line sorting out south and north led the division of the country under the rule of British and Ottoman. But, there is a clear appearance of the cultural differences among these two regions which highlighted by their opposing histories. So, the system of both politics and culture in the northern region has been under the Zaidi theocratic regulation (which is a branch of Shi’ism originate nearly exclusively in the country) for over  years (Dunning 2018).

On the opposite side, the south region of the country was converted by the influence of the British in the middle of 19th century. The British contended directly the most strategic anchorage of Aden as a colony and complement the financial and also military aid for the areas which established itself within the neighborhoods of the port along with some other south areas. Later on, the differences between the south and north regions getting expanded right after the British’s removal in the year of 1967 which followed with the decades of regulation by PDRY (Burrowes 2016).

Causes of the Civil War in Yemen

The religious divisions in Yemen were widely parallel to the geography of the country itself. Zaidi Shi’ism is in the majority of the northern highlands, while a minor Sunny Isma’ili minority formed in the other part of the country. In history, there was only minor sectarianism appeared in the country. There were even lots of mix-marriages between Sunnis and Zaidis which has been considered a normal thing at that time. The problem started when some Yemenis who belongs to diver sects perform their prayer at the same mosque. Even though there was no dispute about this, but emergence of political Islam such as the  I along with the Zaidi Houthis has awakened the pressures. Likewise, the spread out of Sunni ideology in customary areas of Zaidi has contributed the rise of Houthi movement in the country.

As far as the Yemen’s situation is concerned when the war starts then it can be said that the political instability provides the root causes for the Yemen’s war. The political transition was intended to bring the stability to the Yemen. But it got failed. This is the era (2011) when the power was handed over by the president (Ali Abdullah Saleh) to his deputy (Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi). The deputy has to deal with the problems of varying nature along with the consideration of the attacks by the jihadists, the continuing loyalty of security personnel to Saleh, a separatist movement in the south and corruption, food insecurity & unemployment (Yemen Crisis 2019).

However, the civil war in Yemen cannot be considered only as a conflict between Sunni and Shia or between Saudi and Iranian. In fact, it is further complex than that. Actually, until 1962, Yemen was governed under the supremacy of Zaidi Shia imams, where the Houthis were known as the revivalist movement of Zaidi Shia. In contrast, the Houthis have never labeled for bringing back the imamate in the country, in addition the religious accusations have never been a main aspect of the war. Instead, the demands required by the Houthis have been mainly political and economic. In the year of 2013, there was a launching of  which assigned to create a new constitution and also forming a federal political structure. However, the Houthis have decided to step out from the process due to they thought that it would definitely leave the provisional government of Yemen in place. The matters become further inflaming with the fact that two representatives from Houthi were murdered during the proceedings of that conference (Schmitz 2014).

In addition to this, the decision made by the government to remove the subsidies of fuel in July 2014 has caused the anger of Yemenis and generated enormous road protests by the supporters of Houthi and others, who requested the government to step down. Then the Houthis progressed their movement in January 2015 with taking over Sanaa which was the capital city of Yemen, and thus, forcing President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi along with his officers to move from the capital as well. This movement was supported by Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the former President of Yemen who was removed from the supremacy in 2011, along with his followers.  In March 2015, the Saudi Arabia-led union established an economic isolation campaign along with the number of air strikes to fight the Houthi revolutionaries.

In September 2015, President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi withdrew his resignation and returned to Aden. Later on, in summer 2016, an effort came from the UN to broker peace discussions between the Houthi revolutionaries and Hadi which is the worldwide accepted government of Yemen. However, those discussions still not present any good results for the country. Finally, in July 2016, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh along with the Houthi revolutionaries declared a “political council” to rule Sanaa and most parts of northern Yemen. But, at the end of 2017, a surprising incident came up as the breaking up of Saleh with the Houthi revolutionaries and he even turned out against them. However, the Houthi revolutionaries were able to defeat Saleh along with his supporters in only two days, the incident which has led Saleh to his death (Brandt 2017).

The Intervention from Other Supremacies of The Civil War in Yemen

The intervention of other regional supremacies has made the condition of civil war in Yemen to get worsen. This also includes a Saudi-led union against the Iran assistances for the Houthi revolutionaries which have formed Yemen into the wider division of Sunni-Shia. Numbers of weapons shipments from Iran meant for the Houthi revolutionaries have been blocked by the Saudi-led union ever since April 2015. As a consequence, Iran has sent off its own marine cavalcade which further threats military intensification (Hill 2017).

On the other hand, for decades, Yemen has been a home to a franchise of al-Qaeda which is known as the furthermost dangerous branch of this organization in whole over the world. Up till now, this armed forces was able to extend its trail in the country among the chaos. Ever since this civil war started, al-Qaeda has sent number of attacks to fight the Houthi revolutionaries which they viewed as infidels. In the year of 2015, al-Qaeda has even succeeded to take over Mukalla which is a regional capital and also known as the fifth-biggest city in Yemen as well. But, in 2016, about  Yemeni along with the Emirati hordes sent a ground attack on Mukalla and thrown out al-Qaeda from that capital. In addition to this, on December 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL declared the creation of a state or wilaya in Yemen. Then, exactly on March 2015, ISIL made its initial strike in Yemen which was suicide bombs in two mosques located in Sanaa which always used by the Zaidi Shia Muslims and murdered above than  civilians there (Lackner 2019).

Furthermore, the United States has been acting as the one who contributes the conflict and might be complicit in illegal coalition strikes that appear in Yemen’s civil war. In fact, the United States has delivered in-air refueling along with other tactical facilities to the Saudi-led union. However, in November 2018, the United States declared that the country has stopped its in-air refueling to the Saudi-led union. In addition to this, the United Kingdom has also contributed to providing weaponry along with the training to the members of Saudi-led union. The United Kingdom also is on the list as the largest weapons supplier to Saudi-led union. In fact, the United Kingdom has been considered as one of the countries that immediately conveyed solid support to the Saudi-led union in the Yemen civil war. Furthermore, it turns out that the United Kingdom has not only supported the weapons. Instead, the United Kingdom has also assisted the Saudi-led union diplomatically. An example can be seen from how the UK responded to a report of above than 100 air strikes of Saudi-led union that had violated the global law. At that time, the Middle East Minister Tobias Elwood said that the Saudis has created “mistakes” and also claimed that further cases might have been “produced” by the Houthi revolutionaries. France also has come up as a country that gives significant weapons supplies to the Saudi-led coalition. In fact, a report mentioned that the country has sent more than 2 billion dollars together with armored vehicles, air defense facilities, along with the airplane subsystem (Sharp, Yemen: Civil War and Regional Intervention 2019).

Why the War is Still Ongoing?

There are some reasons that might cause the civil war in Yemen as an ongoing war that up till now, still remain to be far beyond peace. These reasons serve as the basis for the failure of UN to stop the war. The main reason is definitely the different beliefs. We cannot deny that this civil war in Yemen was initially started as a war between two different beliefs which are Sunni and Shia. Even though the Yemenis from these both beliefs were getting along each other and did not find any single conflict in past days, but the conflict has started with the manipulations made by emergence of political Islam which able to influence the minds of Yemenis and starting up the conflict between these two beliefs. A belief is something that definitely able to make anyone do anything they could to protect it since a belief is the foundation of their lives, the one that gave us principles and rules on what to do and don’t in our lives. In the context of Yemen, both Sunni and Shia are fighting for their beliefs and both also aim to win as it would be a great reward for each group. The conflict was getting worst with the interfere of some politicians who comes aim to govern the country and have been also manipulating the minds of Yemenis from the two beliefs to move further distance and created huge gap between them (Laub 2016).

As we have acknowledged, both Sunni and Shia basically belong to one religion, Islam, and in Islam, the Muslims always follow and respect their leaders since it has taught them since they were kids. For this reason, the Houthi revolutionaries were influenced by their leader, which was the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to take back their supremacy of Yemen, even though later on a conflict eventually appeared between Saleh and the Houthi revolutionaries. On the other hand, it was a coincidence that the world-accepted government of Yemen the President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi belongs to Sunni. Thus, another reason for the war is still ongoing might due to the Houthi revolutionaries which known as revivalist movement of Zaidi Shia do not want to respect and follow a Sunni President to rule the country where the majority citizens there are Shias (Orkaby 2015). Hence, once again, the different beliefs have turned out to be the fundamental reason for the Yemen civil war to arise in the country.

The second reason of why the Yemen civil war is still ongoing is due to the intervention of big supremacies from other countries across the world. These countries seem rather to help one side of the two conflicting groups rather than stopping the war itself. Many pieces of evidence can be seen such as how the Saudi-led union is helping the group of the world-accepted government of Yemen which belongs to Sunni, and how Iran has been always helping the Houthi revolutionaries who belong to Shia. Hence, those countries are just presenting their support for their preferred group rather than helping the UN to end the war. This should not happen if those countries have a pure consideration and take part in solving the conflict. In fact, the Human Rights Watch has recorded that not only the Houthi revolutionaries that have been causing the innocent Yemenis to this suffering, but instead, the Saudi-led union as well have also done the same thing to the Yemenis. Some pieces of evidence have mentioned how the Saudi-led union has restricted the imports which have degraded the terrible humanitarian crisis in the country. On the other hand, the Houthi revolutionaries also made the Yemenis suffer from blocking and removing some supplies of food and medical aids from their access to the people.  Thus, the conflict in Yemen has got bigger and greatly worsen along with the regional pressures. The conflict has also considered as part of regional supremacy fight between and . The Saudi-led union which is one of the supporters of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has alleged Iran of strengthening the financial and military support for the Houthi revolutionaries, even though Iran has repudiated this fact (Eshaq and Al-Marani 2016).

How the Yemen Civil War Might End?

Even though there are many peace talks have been conducted by the UN to end this Yemen civil war, but still, the war is still ongoing. Numbers of significant peace talks have been performed by the UN in the year of 2016 such as (Sharp 2017):

·         On April 18, the UN held peace talks with a purpose to end the Yemen civil war that was eventually faded even before the talks could ever start since the delegates from the Houthi revolutionaries rejected to attend these peace talks.

·         On April 20, the peace talks arranged based on the UN Security Council solution 2216 which requested the Houthi revolutionaries to pull out from the areas that they have seized ever since 2014, and hand over the hefty weapons back to the valid government.

·         On August 6, the UN exceptional representative visited Yemen to announce the suspension in Kuwait where the peace talks were being held. However, the talks ended with the consistent rejection from the Hadi supporters to any type of agreement that would shrink up their supremacy in Yemen. On the other hand, the Houthi revolutionaries have also stated that they would refuse any type of agreement that would not give them any place in the government administration.

The Yemen civil war definitely needs to be ended, since there is a massive humanitarian crisis still ongoing there, and thus, the UN needs to give more effort in negotiation both of the groups in conflict to calm down and make peace for all the innocent Yemenis in the country. Actually, this Yemen civil war was started due to the loyalty of each group to this war might end if the leaders from both groups could sit down and talk in peace about the future of this country. This is where the UN needs to take action in negotiating both two conflicting groups. The UN should present the data of many civilian victims who have been killed due to this war, and make both groups realize that this is no longer a small conflict, instead, it has turned out as the biggest humanitarian crisis that the world ever had. Both conflicting groups should look further for the numbers of innocent children and women who have been killed during this civil war. In addition to this, the leaders of both groups should open up their eyes and look to the pain that this war has been giving to the Yemenis rather than prioritizing their ambitions to rule the country. In fact, those leaders should put their concern more on the future of Yemen along with children as their next generation. Hence, the Yemen civil war could only end if the leaders from both conflicting groups release their ambitions of power to take over the country and live with tolerance as they used to live in past days. They should even compare the country’s situation in past days when both Sunni and Shia could get along in the country with the situation that appears nowadays where there is no longer peace that could be found in every corner of Yemen.

References of The Civil War in Yemen

Abdi, Reza & Basarati, Ali. 2016. "A Critical Analysis of the Representation of Yemen Crisis in Ideologically-Loaded Newspaper Headlines." Science Direct 16: 37-52.

bbc.com. 2019. Yemen war: Houthi rebels release hundreds of detainees. September 30 . https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49880517.

Blumi, Isa. 2018. Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World. Univ of California Press.

Bonnefoy, Laurent. 2018. Yemen and the World: Beyond Insecurity. Oxford University Press.

Brandt, Marieke. 2017. Tribes and Politics in Yemen: A History of the Houthi Conflict. Oxford University Press.

Burrowes, Robert D. 2016. The Yemen Arab Republic: The Politics of Development, 1962-1986. Routledge.

Day, Stephen W. 2012. Regionalism and Rebellion in Yemen: A Troubled National Union. Cambridge University Press.

Dunning, Tristan. 2018. "Yemen - the 'worst humanitarian crisis in the world' continues." ResearchGate 1-17.

Eshaq, Alia, and Suad Al-Marani. 2016. "Assessing the EU’s conflict prevention and peacebuilding interventions in Yemen." Sana’a: Political Development Forum.

Hill, Ginny. 2017. Yemen Endures: Civil War, Saudi Adventurism and the Future of Arabia. Oxford University Press.

Lackner, Helen. 2019. Yemen in Crisis: Road to War. Verso Books.

Laub, Zachary. 2016. "Yemen in crisis." Council on Foreign Relation.

Orkaby, Asher. 2015. "A Passing Generation of Yemeni Politics." Middle East Brief.

—. 2017. Beyond the Arab Cold War: The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68. Oxford University Press.

Schmitz, Charles. 2014. "Yemen’s national dialogue." Middle East Institute .

Sharp, Jeremy M. 2017. "Yemen: Civil War and Regional Intervention."

Sharp, Jeremy M. 2019. "Yemen: Civil War and Regional Intervention."

Yemen Crisis. 2019. Yemen Crisis: Why is there a war? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29319423.