Famine in Yemen المجاعة في اليمن | |
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Country | Yemen |
Period | 2016–present |
Total deaths | More than 90,000 children (adults unknown) (2018 estimate) [1] [2] [3] [4] |
Death rate | At least 130 children (adults unknown) per day (December 2016–November 2017 estimate) [5] [6] |
Causes |
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Consequences |
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Since 2016, a food insecurity crisis has been ongoing in Yemen which began during the Yemeni civil war. [10] The UN estimates that the war has caused an estimated 130,000 deaths from indirect causes which include lack of food, health services, and infrastructure as of December 2020. [11] In 2018, Save the Children estimated that 85,000 children have died due to starvation in the three years prior. [12] [13] In May 2020, UNICEF described Yemen as "the largest humanitarian crisis in the world", and estimated that 80% of the population, over 24 million people, were in need of humanitarian assistance. [14] In September 2022, the World Food Programme estimated that 17.4 million Yemenis struggled with food insecurity, and projected that number would increase to 19 million by the end of the year, describing this level of hunger as "unprecedented." [9] The crisis is being compounded by an outbreak of cholera, which resulted in over 3000 deaths between 2015 and mid 2017. [15] While the country is in crisis and multiple regions have been classified as being in IPC Phase 4 (humanitarian emergency), an actual classification of famine conditions was averted in 2018 and again in early 2019 due to international relief efforts. [16] [17] In January 2021, two out of 33 regions were classified as IPC 4 (humanitarian emergency) while 26 were classified as IPC 3 (acute crisis). [18]
The main cause of the crisis is the ongoing Yemeni civil war. Aid often cannot effectively reach the population because of the ongoing civil war and the blockade of Yemen by Saudi Arabia which started in 2015. [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] The blockade was intensified in November 2017 with the closure of all sea and land ports and then partially but not fully lifted at the end of the month, [24] and some humanitarian supplies were allowed into the country. [25]
According to the 2019 Global Hunger Index, Yemen has the second-highest hunger score in the world, after the Central African Republic with a slight worsening of the hunger score since 2000 (increase from 43.2 to 45.9). [26] For 2020, GHI estimates that the prevalence of wasting in children under 5 has increased from 13.3% to 15.5% and the prevalence of stunting has increased from 46.6% to 53.2% while overall child mortality has slightly decreased in the period of the civil war (compared to 2010). [27] [26]
Since its unification in 1990, Yemen has been one of the poorer countries in the region. As the cost of local food production was high, it also became dependent on food imports. [28] As global food prices spiked in 2008, this led to food insecurity and food riots. Prior to the civil war, Yemen was already the most vulnerable country in the Middle East, ranking highly among the world's most malnourished, with 50 percent of its population living in impoverished conditions with limited access to safe water. [29]
In 2014, a fight between government forces and Houthi-led insurgents led to a full-scale civil war. Iran's government offered military support to the Houthis, leading to the seizure of Yemen's capital Sana'a. [30] President Abd Rabbu Mansour was forced to resign together with his government officials. Towards the beginning of March of the same year, the United States and Saudi Arabia implemented a series of economic sanctions and a Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes against the Houthi rebels. [31] In the following years, the Houthis began attacking oil transports, imposing an effective embargo on oil exports. [32]
These sanctions and ongoing war greatly diminished the domestic economy and destroyed national infrastructure. The war also affected civilians severely, displacing over four million residents, [33] and leaving over 68 percent of people in serious need of humanitarian assistance. [29]
The famine is the direct result of the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and blockade. [34] [35] [36] [37] Yemen was already the most impoverished nation in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East, and Al Hudaydah one of the poorest cities of Yemen, but the war and the naval blockade [38] [39] by the Saudi-led coalition made the situation much worse. Fishing boats, the main livelihood of Al Hudaydah's residents, were destroyed by Saudi airstrikes, [40] [41] [ dubious – discuss ] leaving them without any means to provide for their families. [42] [43] As a result, one child dies every ten minutes on average. [44] A UN panel of experts found that Saudi Arabia is purposefully obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid into Yemen. [45]
Saudi Arabia was reported to be deliberately targeting means of food production and distribution in Yemen [46] by bombing farms, [47] [48] fishing boats, [49] ports, [50] [51] food storages, food factories, [52] [53] and other businesses [54] in order to exacerbate famine. These actions led to the UN accusing the Saudi-led coalition of committing war crimes and having a "complete disregard for human life". [55] [54] [56] [57] [58] 1,500 schools were damaged and destroyed during Yemeni Civil War. [59] After Saudi-backed Hadi's forces retook Mocha from Houthis they barred fishermen from working. [60] [61] The Union of Yemeni fishermen accused the coalition of waging war against fishermen. [62]
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy accused the United States of complicity in Yemen's humanitarian crisis, saying: "Thousands and thousands inside Yemen today are dying. ... This horror is caused in part by our decision to facilitate a bombing campaign that is murdering children and to endorse a Saudi strategy inside Yemen that is deliberately using disease and starvation and the withdrawal of humanitarian support as a tactic." [63]
The British researcher Alex de Waal has considered the famine in Yemen as
The world's worst since North Korea in the 1990s and the one in which Western responsibility is clearest... Britain has sold at least £4.5 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and £500 million to the UAE since the war began. The US role is even bigger: Trump authorized arms sales to the Saudis worth $110 billion last May. Yemen will be the defining famine crime of this generation, perhaps this century. [64]
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has been assisting victims of the famine and the cholera outbreak, as well as providing mental health assistance to those who have been affected by the war. [65]
Houthi rebels have been accused of unlawfully confiscating food and medicine from civilians under their control by organizations including Human Rights Watch (HRW), MSF, and the World Food Programme (WFP), with a WFP survey finding that food aid was not reaching the majority of those eligible to receive it in Houthi–held Sanaʽa and Saada. [66] [67]
Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi's decision to relocate the Central Bank of Yemen to Aden in September 2016 was reported to have exacerbated the vulnerable living conditions of the population. The move "was aimed primarily at disabling the Houthi-Saleh administered bureaucracy based in Sana'a. Instead, it provoked a severe liquidity crisis that has fueled famine, as somewhere between 8.5 million and 10 million Yemenis rely on public sector salaries that have been unpaid for more than a year." [68]
Sana'a Centre for Strategical Studies recorded that the banking crisis in fact began in early 2010 when American banks began closing the accounts of Yemeni banks, and with the start of the conflict in 2011, as Yemen came under UN Chapter 7 jurisdiction. "Large European and American banks ceased to interact with Yemeni banks completely. Yemeni banks became both unable to honor customer requests to withdraw cash – leading to further hoarding outside the banking system – and had no domestic currency to deposit at the Central Bank of Yemen. These multiple, interrelated and mutually reinforcing factors helped instigate a severe public sector cash liquidity crisis in mid-2016." [69]
More than 50,000 children in Yemen died from starvation during 2017. [1] [2] [3] [ dubious – discuss ]
On 5 November 2017, the Saudi-led coalition began blocking all fuel shipments to Yemen, causing farmers to abandon modern equipment like tractors and forcing hospitals to function without generators. [70] [71]
On 11 December 2017, Jamie McGoldrick, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, affirmed that 8 million in the country are in danger of famine unless access to immediate humanitarian aid is allowed. [72] [73] On 13 December 2017, USAID administrator, Mark Andrew Green, stated that there are no signs that the blockade had been in any way eased and Yemeni ports are still fully blocked. [74] [75]
According to The Economist , another major cause of the famine is the popularity of the cultivation and consumption of khat, which requires a significant amount of water to grow in addition to being the most popular drug in Yemen. [8] Khat cultivation is monopolised by the Houthi rebels. [8]
In July 2018, a 25% increase in severe hunger cases in Yemen compared to 2017 was reported. [76]
In a September 2018 column in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof stated that the United States is supporting crimes against humanity in Yemen, adding that: "America is helping to kill, maim and starve Yemeni children. At least eight million Yemenis are at risk of starvation from an approaching famine caused not by crop failures but by our actions and those of our allies. The United Nations has called it the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and we own it." [77]
In October 2018, World Peace Foundation released a report documenting systematic targeting and destruction of food production and distribution infrastructure in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition. [78]
On 31 October 2018, the United States and the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia's biggest arm suppliers, called for a ceasefire in the conflict in Yemen. A press release from the United States Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, stated: "A cessation of hostilities and vigorous resumption of a political track will help ease the humanitarian crisis as well. It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction." [79] On 10 November 2018, the U.S. announced it would no longer refuel coalition aircraft operating over Yemen. [80] The U.S. continues its backing of the Saudi-led intervention with weapons sales and intelligence sharing. [81]
In November 2018, according to a report by The New York Times, 1.8 million children in Yemen are severely malnourished. [82]
On 3 August 2019, a United Nations report said the US, UK and France may be complicit in committing war crimes in Yemen by selling weapons and providing support to the Saudi-led coalition which is using the starvation of civilians as a tactic of warfare. [83] [84]
Famine was averted in 2019, as support from donor governments saw the World Food Programme scale up to support increasing needs, going from supporting around 1 million people in 2015 to nearly 13 million in 2019. It was one of the largest humanitarian scale-ups in recent history. [85]
As of March 2020, UNICEF estimates that 2 million children under the age of 5 suffer from acute malnutrition and require treatment. [86]
According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNICEF, and the World Food Programme (WFP) and partners, 40% of Yemen's population was expected to suffer from acute food insecurity because of the war, flood, coronavirus, and locust swarms, by the end of 2020. Within 6 months "high levels of acute food insecurity" was estimated to increase from 2 million to 3.2 million, even if the food aid was maintained. [87]
The World Food Programme (WFP) projected in March 2021 that if the Saudi-led blockade and war continues, more than 400,000 Yemeni children under 5 years old could die from acute malnutrition before the end of the year as the blockade devastates the nation. [88] [89] [90]
The UN estimated that by the end of 2021, the conflict in Yemen had claimed more than 377,000 lives, with 60% of them the result of hunger, disease and lack of healthcare facilities. [91] [92]
In March 2022, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator called for humanitarian assistance and protection of millions of people with essential services. At the June 2022 Yemen Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) meeting, stakeholders recognized the protection programming is only at 36.9 percent of the available 47.2 percent fund. In September 2022, the scale of food insecurity for 17.4 million Yemenis was communicated- predicting 19 million people to be at risk of famine by December 2022. This confirmed that the women and children Malnutrition rates in Yemen remain among the highest in the world, with 1.3 million pregnant or lactating women and with 2.2 million children under 5 years old requiring treatment for acute malnutrition. [93] In December 2022, the World Food Program (WFP) published Yemenis Emergency needs with 23.5 million people lacking humanitarian assistance. WFP also reported that 17 million people are food insecure, and 3.5 million pregnant or breastfeeding women and children under 5 are exposed to acute malnutrition, which is much higher than the September 2022 predicted needs. [94]
In 2023, Yemen continued to face a humanitarian crisis, with two-thirds of its population, approximately 21.6 million people, requiring humanitarian assistance and protection services. This ongoing need stemmed from protracted war, economic collapse, displacement, and recurrent natural disasters. Despite a slight decrease from 23.4 million people in need in 2022 to 21.6 million in 2023, the situation remained critically severe. The UN's humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, sought $4.3 billion to support the 17.3 million most vulnerable individuals. Key strategic objectives for the year included promoting life-saving activities, enhancing resilience, and ensuring protection for the affected populations. [95]
Yemen's humanitarian and development agencies focused on incorporating climate resilience into their interventions, recognizing the growing impact of climate change on the already vulnerable country. The Food Security and Agriculture Cluster aimed to secure and improve food access for vulnerable households through a $1.36 billion plan, reaching 12.8 million people. The health sector faced a significant funding shortfall, exacerbating challenges such as cholera outbreaks and malnutrition's medical side effects. Efforts to improve access to clean water, sanitation, health services, and renewable energy sources in health facilities were critical priorities. In addition, support for livelihood development and cash-based interventions continued to be vital for fostering economic stability and self-sufficiency among Yemenis. [96]
Human rights in Yemen are seen as problematic. The security forces have been responsible for torture, inhumane treatment and even extrajudicial executions. In recent years there has been some improvement, with the government signing several international human rights treaties, and even appointing a woman, Dr. Wahiba Fara’a, to the role of Minister of the State of Human Rights.
The Houthi movement, officially known as Ansar Allah, is a Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged from Yemen in the 1990s. It is predominantly made up of Zaidi Shias, with their namesake leadership being drawn largely from the Houthi tribe.
Yemeni peace process refers to the proposals and negotiations to pacify the Yemeni Crisis by arranging a power transfer scheme within the country and later cease-fire attempts within the raging civil war. While initially unsuccessful, the reconciliation efforts resulted with presidential elections, held in Yemen in February 2012. The violence in Yemen, however, continued during the elections and after, culminating in Houthi seizure of power and the ensuing civil war.
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, popularly known by his initials as MBS or MbS, is the heir apparent to the Saudi Arabian throne. He is currently Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. He is the seventh son of King Salman of Saudi Arabia and grandson of the nation's founder, King Abdulaziz.
The Yemeni crisis began with the 2011–2012 revolution against President Abdullah Saleh, who had led Yemen for 33 years. After Saleh left office in early 2012 as part of a mediated agreement between the Yemeni government and opposition groups, the government led by Saleh's former vice president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, struggled to unite the fractious political landscape of the country and fend off threats both from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and from Houthi militants that had been waging a protracted insurgency in the north for years.
The Yemeni civil war is an ongoing multilateral civil war that began in late 2014 mainly between the Rashad al-Alimi-led Presidential Leadership Council and the Mahdi al-Mashat-led Supreme Political Council, along with their supporters and allies. Both claim to constitute the official government of Yemen.
On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and North Africa, launched an intervention in Yemen at the request of Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had been ousted from the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 by Houthi insurgents during the Yemeni Civil War. Efforts by the United Nations to facilitate a power sharing arrangement under a new transitional government collapsed, leading to escalating conflict between government forces, Houthi rebels, and other armed groups, which culminated in Hadi fleeing to Saudi Arabia shortly before it began military operations in the country.
International reactions to the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen of 2015 were mixed. Most other Arab League nations and several Western governments backed the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition, but other governments warned against an escalation in the violent situation in Yemen.
A Saudi Arabian-led military intervention in Yemen began in 2015, in an attempt to influence the outcome of the Yemeni Civil War. Saudi Arabia, spearheading a coalition of nine Arab states, began carrying out airstrikes in neighbouring Yemen and imposing an aerial and naval blockade on 26 March 2015, heralding a military intervention code-named Operation Decisive Storm. More than 130 health facilities(2019) in Yemen have been destroyed by a series of airstrikes conducted by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition since March 2015. Many of these have been public health hospitals staffed or supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Critics of the assaults say the airstrikes are war crimes in violation of the protections of health care facilities afforded by the internationally recognized rules of war and have called for independent investigations.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other regions of the Muslim world. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. The struggle also extends to disputes or broader competition in other countries globally including in West, North and East Africa, South, Central, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
War crimes and human rights violations, committed by all warring parties, have been widespread throughout the Yemeni civil war. This includes the two main groups involved in the ongoing conflict: forces loyal to the current Yemeni president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and Houthis and other forces supporting Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former Yemeni president. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have also carried out attacks in Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition, backed by the United States and other nations, has also been accused of violating human rights and breaking international law, especially in regards to airstrikes that repeatedly hit civilian targets.
The following is a timeline of the Yemeni civil war, which began in September 2014.
An outbreak of cholera began in Yemen in October 2016. The outbreak peaked in 2017 with over 2,000 reported deaths in that year alone. In 2017 and 2019, war-torn Yemen accounted for 84% and 93% of all cholera cases in the world, with children constituting the majority of reported cases. As of November 2021, there have been more than 2.5 million cases reported, and more than 4,000 people have died in the Yemen cholera outbreak, which the United Nations deemed the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at that time. However, the outbreak has substantially decreased by 2021, with a successful vaccination program implemented and only 5,676 suspected cases with two deaths reported between January 1 and March 6 of 2021.
The blockade of Yemen refers to a sea, land and air blockade on Yemen which started with the positioning of Saudi Arabian warships in Yemeni waters in 2015 with the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. In November 2017, after a Houthi missile heading towards King Khalid International Airport was intercepted, the Saudi-led military coalition stated it would close all sea land and air ports to Yemen, but shortly began reopening them after criticism from the United Nations and over 20 aid groups and some humanitarian supplies were allowed into the country. In March 2021, Saudi Arabia denied the blockade continued, however, UN authorized ships continued to be delayed by Saudi warships.
The siege of Al Hudaydah, codenamed Operation Golden Victory, was a major Saudi-led coalition assault on the port city of Al Hudaydah in Yemen. It was spearheaded by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and has been considered as the largest battle since the start of Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen in 2015.
During the Yemeni civil war, Saudi Arabia led an Arab coalition of nine nations from the Middle East and parts of Africa in response to calls from the internationally recognized pro-Saudi president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military support after he was ousted by the Houthi movement due to economic and political grievances, and fled to Saudi Arabia.
The first confirmed case relating to the COVID-19 pandemic in Yemen was announced on 10 April 2020 with an occurrence in Hadhramaut. Organizations called the news a "devastating blow" and a "nightmare scenario" given the country's already dire humanitarian situation.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity intensified in many places. In the second quarter of 2020, there were multiple warnings of famine later in the year. In an early report, the Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) Oxfam-International talks about "economic devastation" while the lead-author of the UNU-WIDER report compared COVID-19 to a "poverty tsunami". Others talk about "complete destitution", "unprecedented crisis", "natural disaster", "threat of catastrophic global famine". The decision of the WHO on 11 March 2020, to qualify COVID as a pandemic, that is "an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people" also contributed to building this global-scale disaster narrative.
During the presidency of Barack Obama, the United States began providing Saudi Arabia with critical support to "sustain" the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in the Yemeni Civil War, later expanded during the presidency of Donald Trump. This support included logistical and intelligence aid. Trump vetoed a bipartisan bill in 2019 aimed at stopping U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. In 2021, Joe Biden vowed to halt U.S. support for the war, though U.S. arms sales to the coalition have continued.
The following is a timeline of the Yemeni humanitarian crisis, ongoing since the mid-2010s.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)The port has been blockaded by the Saudi-led coalition for the past three years, a decision aid organisations say has been the main contributing factor to the famine that threatens to engulf half of Yemen's 28 million population.