The war in Yemen
A Saudi-led coalition intervenes against the Houthi movement, which had seized Yemen's capital; years of air strikes, blockade and cross-border missile attacks follow, with a vast human toll in Yemen.
- Yemeni Civil War — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Assessing the Impact of War in Yemen: Pathways for Recovery — United Nations Development Programme (2021)
- MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman — Ben Hubbard, Tim Duggan Books (2020)
In September 2014 the Houthis, a Zaydi Shia revivalist movement from Yemen’s far north, took the capital, Sanaa, and in early 2015 pushed south towards Aden. Saudi Arabia, seeing the hand of its rival Iran, assembled a coalition of mainly Arab states and on 26 March 2015 began air strikes, a campaign closely associated with the new defence minister, Mohammed bin Salman.
- Yemeni Civil War — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman — Ben Hubbard, Tim Duggan Books (2020)
Saudi Arabia and Yemen are bound together by a long border, migration, trade and tribal ties; millions of Yemenis have worked in the kingdom, and many Saudi families in the south have Yemeni roots. Riyadh had intervened in Yemen before, backing the royalists against Nasser’s Egyptian army in the 1960s and fighting the Houthis on the border in 2009.
- Yemeni Civil War — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- A History of Saudi Arabia (2nd edition) — Madawi Al-Rasheed, Cambridge University Press (2010)
The quick victory promised never came. The war divided Yemen between the Houthi-held north and a patchwork of rival forces in the south, while the Houthis fired missiles and drones deep into Saudi Arabia. The UN Development Programme estimated the war’s death toll at about 377,000 by the end of 2021, roughly 60% from indirect causes.
- Assessing the Impact of War in Yemen: Pathways for Recovery — United Nations Development Programme (2021)
- Yemeni Civil War — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Yemeni Civil War — Encyclopaedia Britannica
The coalition intervened at the request of Yemen's internationally recognised government to stop an Iranian-backed militia taking over a neighbouring country. The Houthis have fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Saudi territory, and the kingdom has given billions in aid to Yemen.
- Yemeni Civil War — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman — Ben Hubbard, Tim Duggan Books (2020)
Coalition air strikes hit markets, hospitals, weddings and a school bus, and restrictions on imports deepened hunger in the Arab world's poorest country. All sides, including the Houthis, have been accused of serious violations. The UN Development Programme estimated that the war would have caused some 377,000 deaths by the end of 2021, about 60% of them from indirect causes such as hunger and disease.
- Assessing the Impact of War in Yemen: Pathways for Recovery — United Nations Development Programme (2021)
- Yemeni Civil War — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Why it matters today
For many Saudis the war was about defending their country from an Iranian-backed militia firing missiles and drones at Saudi cities, airports and oil plants; soldiers from the southern border regions died in it. For the outside world it became a symbol of civilian suffering. Since a truce in 2022, the kingdom has sought a way out.