Yemen:‌ ‌The‌ ‌World’s‌ ‌Worst‌ ‌Humanitarian‌ ‌Crisis‌ ‌

anasalhajj / Shutterstock.com

As the rest of the world shifts the limited attention they initially gave away from Yemen to focus on rebuilding their respective economies and societies, the largest humanitarian crisis continues to take a turn for the worse, once again. Now in the sixth year of an armed conflict that has killed over 18,400 civilians, the state of Yemen is a crisis embedded within another crisis. According to UNICEF, more than 24 million people, or 80% of the overall population–including 12 million children– are in need of humanitarian assistance. Since the progression of the conflict in 2015, children have been consistently killed and harmed in the process, with the closure and destruction of the entire education system, snatching away their futures, as well as the combined shortage of health services, nutrition, and water. Approximately 2.3 million children under the age of five in Yemen are estimated to suffer from acute malnutrition this year, of which 400,000 are expected to die if they are not provided with immediate treatment. In addition to the pre-existing conditions, the half of the health facilities which remain functioning lack necessities to treat the coronavirus, thus exponentially worsening the conflict and leaving the citizens neglected once more.

Civil Unrest

Yemen is currently in a war-torn state as their civil war continues on in its sixth year. There isn’t just one discernible cause, rather, numerous convoluted disputes and clashes between political groups and coalitions are responsible for the current state of Yemen. Unfortunately, innocent Yemeni civilians are most frequently left to bear the brunt of the burden. 

The Muslim population in Yemen is divided into two predominant Islamic groups, with an approximate 65% being Sunnis and 35% being Shiites, according to a 2010 CIA estimate. The Houthi insurgency (also known as Ansar Allah) is a political party which consists primarily of Shiite rebels. The conflict intensified in the summer of 2014 between the Houthis and the Sunni government (led by President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi) regarding fuel prices, which resulted in civil strife and protests. In January 2015, following the previous conflict, Houthi rebels seized the government, which in turn caused Hadi and his cabinet to flee to Saudi Arabia, leaving the Houthis in totalitarian control of the government. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia intervened with the intention of restoring the original Hadi government and expelling the Houthi militia, in hopes that this would protect Saudi Arabian’s southern border and prevent Iranian interference. Saudi Arabia intended to accomplish this via air strikes, with the U.S. offering support. 

Currently, Yemen’s war consists of the Houthis vs. the Saudi-led coalition, Houthis vs. Yemeni Sunni organizations, independent insurgencies, anti-terrorism campaigns and the Saudi-Iranian proxy war. The involvement of these regional powers continues to expand the sectarian divide– and no matter who emerges as a victor in this war, the people of Yemen will always be on the losing side. According to the UNHCR, “as of November 2018, 6,872 civilians had been killed and 10,768 wounded, the majority by Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes.” Twenty-two million Yemenis remain in need of assistance, eight million are at risk of famine, and a cholera outbreak has affected over one million people. Peace will never be achieved until the powers responsible for this war bring an end to all conflicts and violence, and Yemen receives global humanitarian assistance.

U.S. Involvement

Saudi Arabia has been consistently bombing Yemen, with support from the United States, since 2015 in an attempt to overthrow the Houthis, while the U.S. benefits by profiting off the war, earning billions. When the conflict initially escalated in 2015, the Obama Administration endorsed the intervention and attacks of Saudi Arabia. In 2016, the U.S. began to limit their support of Saudi Arabia’s air campaigns while Obama was still in office, however, shortly after Trump was elected, Obama’s limitations on the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia were lifted and the U.S.’s support increased once again. As a result, several American weaponry companies and corporations such as Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon, have made billions of dollars in profits. 

The U.S. has additionally offered assistance in the Yemen war by refueling Saudi warplanes that dropped bombs on Yemen, killing civilians. Due to increased scrutiny from concerned activists and lawmakers, the Trump administration ended this practice– but despite this, the Saudi war effort continues to receive logistical and intelligence support as well as advanced weapons, such as precision-guided missiles, from the U.S. 

In February 2021, President Joe Biden announced that America would no longer be providing “offensive” support, instead, the U.S. would only continue to reinforce “defensive” operations to help defend Saudi Arabia’s territorial dominance and to maintain U.S. – Saudi Arabian relations. Although the U.S. has limited its support to the Saudi war effort, the “defensive” support that the government continues to provide still allows the Saudi government to pay commercial contractors to maintain and utilize Saudi warplanes in the air. Ultimately, the U.S. is still indirectly supporting Saudi airstrikes and the genocide of Yemeni civilians while simultaneously publically assuring the limitations of their support. The chief Defense Department spokesperson, John Kirby, explained that the U.S. government has a “military-to-military relationship with Saudi Arabia that is important to the region and to [the government’s] interests, and [the U.S. has] a commitment to help them defend themselves against what are real threats.” Should the U.S. cancel maintenance contracts and stop permitting the use of the U.S. authorized warplanes, Saudi Arabia would be vulnerable to any attacks from the Houthis and neighboring enemies, which could potentially result in the dismantling of U.S. – Saudi Arabian relations.

COVID-19

Every country around the globe has had their own experience with the novel coronavirus and set their own precedents in place for what they have determined to be the best plan of action to treat the citizens and provide better domestic healthcare as well as their plans for restoring the economy after the emergency. However, the government of Yemen has neither the privilege nor the authority to do so for its own citizens. 

Yemen – Taiz / 24 Mar 2020 : A medical examination for those coming to the southern city of Taiz, medical precautions, for fear of coronavirus. anasalhajj / Shutterstock.com

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Yemen was recorded on April 10th of 2020 in a port city in Hadhramaut governorate, located in eastern Yemen. The UN reported 2,034 confirmed cases and 588 deaths by late September of 2020, however, due to the Houthi administration underestimating the magnitude of the virus and withholding information as well as the limited resources available for testing, the true number of cases may be inaccurate. With an abundance of graves being dug in the city of Aden in southern Yemen, locals say that it has been “worse than the war.” As of right now, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that there have been 6,141 confirmed cases with 1,188 deaths from January 2020 to April 2021. 

The government has failed to pay doctors, despite continuing to pay fighters on the front lines. However, fortunately, the WHO has been working to provide hospitals and healthcare workers in Yemen with essential supplies such as ventilators, intensive care unit beds, and test kits. The capital of Yemen, Sana’a, has developed a COVID-19 advisory committee in an attempt to control and staff more frontline workers specifically for the virus. However, with a recent dramatic influx of ill patients, several parts of Yemen are severely understaffed and critically lacking COVID response. The country received its first 360,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines in March 2021 and a spokesperson for the government’s health ministry confirmed that more shots would arrive in May. The vaccines will be freely distributed across the country under the authority of COVAX, a global initiative that aims to grant equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. 

Global Aid 

Before COVID escalated in Yemen, the Houthi administration threatened to tax foreign aid, which led to the U.S. and other countries to suspend and substantially cut funding formerly provided. The Saudi-led coalition has control over Yemen’s land borders, ports and airports and has forced the Sana’a International Airport to remain closed since August 2016, thus blocking and restricting international humanitarian aid. 

On March 1^st of 2021, a virtual conference was held by the United Nations where the governments of both Sweden and Switzerland and the United Nations invited Member States to participate in the pledging event and contribute to the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan, Country-Based Pooled Fund and the Central Emergency Response Fund for 2021. The target goal intended for aid was $3.85 billion, however, the governments and donors altogether only pledged less than half of the intended goal. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, exclaimed that the $1.7 billion pledge was „less than we received for the humanitarian response plan in 2020 and a billion dollars less than what was pledged at the conference we held in 2019“. Unable to live up to their expectations, experts worry that should funding cuts continue, this could just be “the straw that breaks the camel’s back.” 

Preoccupied with their own internal pandemic-bred dilemma, wealthy nations reduced funding to Yemen in order to focus on the dire COVID situation. Amidst everything, international government officials were concerned that the Houthi militia could be intercepting and using the humanitarian aid meant for Yemeni civilians in need. U.S. State Department spokesman, Ned Price, recognized that “Houthi diversion of fuel imports is just one of the many ways they are exacerbating the humanitarian crisis for the Yemeni population under their control.” With control over the ports and borders, the Houthi administration is capable of conveniently manipulating foreign aid and deliberately diverting [UN provided] food and fuel to sell it on the black market or use it in their war effort. U.S. President Joe Biden expressed his commitment to ensuring that the foreign assistance reaches its intended recipients in territories controlled by the rebels.

1000 for Yemen

1000 for Yemen is a student-founded and student-directed fundraising initiative that aims to spread awareness about and raise funds for Yemen. The objective of this mission is to raise $1,000 specifically for UNICEF’s humanitarian efforts in Yemen. This organization was founded by the current junior and president, Malena Peters, in the summer of 2020. She started with the goal of raising $1,000 via GoFundMe and chose UNICEF as the charity she wanted to donate to because 16.07% of the money raised by UNICEF goes directly to education for Yemeni children, a larger portion than most other 501c3 charities boast. 

Education and the rehabilitation of Yemeni schools is a cause that sits close to our hearts as a student-led organization. We realize the impact education can have, and therefore would like to support an organization that holds similar values. Our club is currently partnered with the PayPal Giving Fund and works through GoFundMe to transfer donations directly to UNICEF. The donations are 100% tax-deductible as UNICEF is a 501c3 fund. 

This year, our organization intends to both expand and educate our surrounding peers in neighboring environments as well as implement more youth-run clubs and chapters of our organization in various schools across the world. So far, we are on our way to establishing an active presence in over 3 schools and counting. With Yemen combatting a multifaceted issue consisting of many factors, including Saudi Arabian embargoes, U.S. weapon sales, and volatile relationships between government and armed, militant movements as well as the impact of COVID-19, our fellow high school students at 1000 For Yemen and feel as though it is vitally important to inform and aid the situation as much as we can. 7.8 million children had no access to education following COVID-19 related school closures and nearly 10 million did not have adequate access to water and sanitation. We at 1000 for Yemen highly value education in our own lives, and we are thankful for the opportunities that education has thus provided us with. We believe that every child has the right to learn, a message which UNICEF’s progress in Yemen helps promote. 

We wish to inspire others to actively utilize and recognize our individual privileges in order to amplify our voices and be heard when speaking on these crucial global issues. This is not just one country’s problem, it is all of ours. It is our moral responsibility as people to help those who may not be as fortunate as we are. If you would like to assist in supporting our organization and furthering the expansion and recognition of this cause, please do not hesitate to donate to our GoFundMe and urge your family and friends to do the same. If you are unable to donate, we completely understand, and kindly ask that you inform others about the urgent crisis which you have read about here today. We at 1000 for Yemen thank you for your time and encourage you to follow us @1000foryemen on Instagram and give us a follow on TikTok, or visit our website for further information about the crisis. 

Bibliography

• “As Conflict, Humanitarian Crisis Grows, Yemen ‚Speeding towards Massive Famine‘, Under-Secretary-General Warns, in Briefing to Security Council | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases.” United Nations, United Nations, 16 Mar. 2021, www.un.org/press/en/2021/sc14470.doc.htm. 
• Deutsche Welle. “Yemen: UN Donor Conference Raises a ‚Disappointing‘ $1.7 Billion: DW: 01.03.2021.” DW.COM, 3 Jan. 2021, www.dw.com/en/yemen-un-donor-conference-raises-a-disappointing-17-billion/a-56738853. 
• Hanania, Ray. “US Concerned about Houthis Stealing Humanitarian Aid.” Arab News, 14 Mar. 2021, www.arabnews.com/node/1824661/middle-east. 
• “How American Companies Have Made Profits from the Yemen War.” BORGEN, 23 Oct. 2020, www.borgenmagazine.com/how-american-companies-have-made-profits-from-the-yemen-war/. 
• Kane, Alex. “Here’s Exactly Who’s Profiting from the War on Yemen.” In These Times, 2019, inthesetimes.com/features/us-saudi-arabia-yemen-war-arms-sales.html. 
• Richard StoneMay. 28, 2020, et al. “Yemen Was Facing the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis. Then the Coronavirus Hit.” Science, 3 June 2020, www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/yemen-was-facing-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crisis-then-coronavirus-hit. 
• Ward, Alex. “The US May Still Be Helping Saudi Arabia in the Yemen War after All.” Vox, Vox, 27 Apr. 2021, www.vox.com/2021/4/27/22403579/biden-saudi-yemen-war-pentagon. 
• “War in Yemen | Global Conflict Tracker.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, 2021, www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-yemen. 
• “World Report 2021: Rights Trends in Yemen.” Human Rights Watch, 13 Jan. 2021, www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/yemen#. 
• “Yemen: A Brief Background.” Unfoundation.org, unfoundation.org/what-we-do/issues/peace-human-rights-and-humanitarian-response/yemen-a-brief-background/. 
• “Yemen Gets First COVID-19 Vaccines but Is ‘at the Back of the Queue.’” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 31 Mar. 2021, www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemen-gets-first-covid-19-vaccines-second-wave-spreads-2021-03-31/. 
• “Yemen Crisis.” UNICEF, 31 Mar. 2021, www.unicef.org/emergencies/yemen-crisis#:~:text=Yemen%20is%20the%20largest%20humanitarian%20crisis%20in%20the%20world%2C%20with,hell%20for%20the%20country’s%20children.