Yemen, the stuck conflict

Text by: Nicolas Falez Follow

On March 26, 2015, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia went to war against the Houthi rebellion in Yemen. Five years later, the kingdom appears bogged down in a devastating conflict for the Yemeni population.

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Saudi military intervention in Yemen bears the mark of King Salman and his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also Minister of Defense. Both arrived at the helm of the kingdom in early 2015. A few weeks later, their country was embarked on a spectacular military adventure whose objective was to defeat the rebel movement of the Houthis of Yemen, from the Zaidite community (a branch of the 'Shiite Islam) of the country. For Saudi Arabia, the objective is then to save the Yemeni government recognized by the international community. At the regional level, Riyadh also intends to inflict a setback on Iran , its great regional rival, which politically supports the Houthi insurgents.

Freezing figures

Five years later, the military failure is blatant since the rebels still control the north of the country, including Sanaa, the capital. The human toll is catastrophic, widely documented by the UN as well as by humanitarian NGOs. One of them, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), gives freezing figures: 24 million people need humanitarian aid, 20 million food aid, 19.7 million medical aid, 6.7 million shelters… The threat of coronavirus now hangs over this gloomy picture. Five years of war in Yemen have also had a "devastating impact" on the mental health of children, many of whom are on the verge of depression, according to a report by the NGO Save the Children . More than half of the approximately 1,250 children interviewed in a large survey across the country said they felt " sad and depressed ", with more than one in ten reporting " a permanent feeling ".

Sinking

In five years, several attempts to settle the conflict have failed to draw a way out of the crisis. The announcement in 2019 of an open negotiation “channel” - between the Houthi rebellion of Yemen and Saudi Arabia did not give rise to any significant breakthrough. - The stagnation of the conflict led the United Arab Emirates, close partners of Riyadh, to partially withdraw from Yemen last year. The situation also embarrasses Saudi Arabia's western allies who are also its main arms suppliers. The French NGO ASER (Action Sécurité éthique Républicaine) thus denounces " a war fueled continuously by arms sold in violation of the Arms Trade Treaty, mainly by Germany , Belgium, Canada, the United States, France , Italy and Spain ”. According to the count of ASER activists, “ between 2015 and 2018, the governments of the European Union (EU) have authorized arms transfers for more than 95 billion euros to Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates united ”.

► Read also: [Analysis] Yemen: understanding such a long conflict

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