The Yemeni Crisis: What is Saudi supposed to do?
The Yemeni Civil war that erupted in March 2015 has left a terrible impact on the country, already being the poorest country in the Middle East prior to that, by causing what the United Nation has called as the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world", with most of the population living in starvation.
Let's look a bit at their background. The country had an uprising as part of the Arab Spring, that saw the Yemeni population rose in protest to ask the then Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after they saw him as corrupt and stamping out democracy in the country. President Saleh had already been president for 33 years by then. Saleh eventually agreed to step down, but there were some issues in the transition of power, and his deputy Abd Rabuh Mansour Hadi which succeeded him is seen not able to bring much required change. Corruption was still rampant as well as the economy was still in shambles.
This caused a group called the Houthis, which are a Shia group in Yemen, calling for the toppling of the regime of Hadi, and they eventually rose up in arms and captured the capital Sana'a, with the help of their supporters which included Yemeni Shias and even some Sunnis (for those unfamiliar, these are two branches of the Islamic faith). Hadi escaped to neighboring Saudi to ask for help and Saudi Arabia agreed to help their ally by leading a coalition of Arab countries to invade Yemen and eventually enacting a blockade on Yemen.
Fast forward five years later, conditions have worsen drastically. The blockade of the country has resulted in many essential items including medicine and food to not be able to reach the Yemenis who are under the Houthi controlled areas, which has resulted in widespread hunger and famine. The war has further caused clean sanitation to be scarce and outbreak of the cholera disease to occur. It is not uncommon to see pictures of malnourished Yemenis on the internet. Al-Jazeera once showed a video of a man crawling outside a tent somewhere in Yemen, very thin and frail to the point that he could no longer walk.
Two days ago, Saudi Arabia has decided to unilaterally announce a cease-fire in its war against Yemen due to fear of a Coronavirus outbreak in Yemen (Yemen up till now, still has zero cases). The Houthi group however, has vowed to continue their attacks on Saudi installations as well as any Saudi positions.
Looking at the situation in Yemen, I could somewhat understand the Saudi's position in this. Their ally, the recognized government in Yemen led by Abdul Rabbuh, has requested for their assistance to fight against these "terrorist" Houthis, and they have to do something to protect their ally. In this case, that protection came in the form of military intervention.
The criticisms that have been leveled on the Saudis however, are the high number of civilian deaths resulted by Saudi bombings on Houthi controlled territory. For some reason, the Saudis have opted to focus their attacks on the Houthis by increased air attack, but not so much on ground attacks. There are not too many reports on Saudi ground invasion strategies to fight Houthis. The high number of air raids have resulted in high casualties among the Yemeni civilians as well. What is the reason for this?
In terms of civilian deaths due to air raid, I could not comment too much because I realized, it is close to impossible to prevent civilian deaths when you are bombing enemies who are in the midst of the civilian populations. We see this in Israeli air raids on Gaza as well as Syrian government attacks on Syrian towns. There will always be high civilian casualties when a war erupts and when one party decides to conduct massive air raid on the enemy. So in terms of criticizing the Saudi air raids that result in high civilian casualty, I could not comment too much against this because of the difficulty to avoid collateral damage. What is important is whether they have done enough intelligence gathering to determine whether a target definitely has enemies in them, or whether there are enough reasons to believe there are enemies residing withing.
So long as the Saudis have done this and other measures to reduce civilian casualties, it should be taken as acceptable. However, have they sufficiently done that? There are many reports where Saudis deliberately bombed hospitals (and many of them) resulting in huge casualties. Then there is the 2018 Dahyan Air Strike, where Saudi air force bombed a school bus full of children, resulting in 29 deaths. These are the kinds of reports that has people condemning Saudi actions against Yemen. So conducting air raids could definitely result in a high number of casualties, but since there are many reports that show Saudi troops not being too careful with civilian casualties, it could be said that Saudi troops should stop its campaign.
Secondly, with regards to their blockade of Yemen that has been imposed on the country since 2015. I am not sure if the blockade has been lifted, since there are not many recent reports covering this situation, although there are reports in 2018 by an aid agency in Yemen saying that there have been a misconception that Saudi has lifted its blockade whereas in fact it hasn't. I take it that the blockade is still continuing as it was before, and this could be in parallel with the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Blockading a territory is a tactic in war but considerations have to be made on the civilian population. The Israeli blockade used to be more restrictive but over the years it has eased, and thus there are no issues of famine in Gaza.
But the situation in Yemen is different, with the country already being the poorest in the Middle East prior to the war, the blockade just made the situation worse. The United Nations has repeatedly announced that the country is facing famine and has declared that the Yemen is currently the country with the worse humanitarian crisis.
Saudi should have a clear and quick plan on how to end the war. In 2015, the Saudi army initially estimated that the war would last only a few weeks with the end result being the defeat of the Houthis. But five years on, the Houthis still control substantial areas in Yemen, and the Saudi is still not able to defeat them. The Saudi government must calculate a concrete plan to end the war for the sake of Yemenis. There is an element of "saving face" here, because the Saudis wouldn't want to admit defeat and just withdraw. However, some analysts have suggested that the recent Covid-19 outbreak has given a chance for Saudi to end the war by giving that as an excuse, at least they do not need to openly declare defeat before withdrawing.
It is up to the Saudis to charter their own exit plan. This ceasefire should be strictly enforced before eventually considering withdrawal. For the sake of the civilian populations, the Yemeni Civil War must end soon.
A mother holding her malnourished child in Yemen
Let's look a bit at their background. The country had an uprising as part of the Arab Spring, that saw the Yemeni population rose in protest to ask the then Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after they saw him as corrupt and stamping out democracy in the country. President Saleh had already been president for 33 years by then. Saleh eventually agreed to step down, but there were some issues in the transition of power, and his deputy Abd Rabuh Mansour Hadi which succeeded him is seen not able to bring much required change. Corruption was still rampant as well as the economy was still in shambles.
This caused a group called the Houthis, which are a Shia group in Yemen, calling for the toppling of the regime of Hadi, and they eventually rose up in arms and captured the capital Sana'a, with the help of their supporters which included Yemeni Shias and even some Sunnis (for those unfamiliar, these are two branches of the Islamic faith). Hadi escaped to neighboring Saudi to ask for help and Saudi Arabia agreed to help their ally by leading a coalition of Arab countries to invade Yemen and eventually enacting a blockade on Yemen.
Top picture: Houthi rebels and bottom: Saudi soldiers in Yemen
Two days ago, Saudi Arabia has decided to unilaterally announce a cease-fire in its war against Yemen due to fear of a Coronavirus outbreak in Yemen (Yemen up till now, still has zero cases). The Houthi group however, has vowed to continue their attacks on Saudi installations as well as any Saudi positions.
Looking at the situation in Yemen, I could somewhat understand the Saudi's position in this. Their ally, the recognized government in Yemen led by Abdul Rabbuh, has requested for their assistance to fight against these "terrorist" Houthis, and they have to do something to protect their ally. In this case, that protection came in the form of military intervention.
The criticisms that have been leveled on the Saudis however, are the high number of civilian deaths resulted by Saudi bombings on Houthi controlled territory. For some reason, the Saudis have opted to focus their attacks on the Houthis by increased air attack, but not so much on ground attacks. There are not too many reports on Saudi ground invasion strategies to fight Houthis. The high number of air raids have resulted in high casualties among the Yemeni civilians as well. What is the reason for this?
In terms of civilian deaths due to air raid, I could not comment too much because I realized, it is close to impossible to prevent civilian deaths when you are bombing enemies who are in the midst of the civilian populations. We see this in Israeli air raids on Gaza as well as Syrian government attacks on Syrian towns. There will always be high civilian casualties when a war erupts and when one party decides to conduct massive air raid on the enemy. So in terms of criticizing the Saudi air raids that result in high civilian casualty, I could not comment too much against this because of the difficulty to avoid collateral damage. What is important is whether they have done enough intelligence gathering to determine whether a target definitely has enemies in them, or whether there are enough reasons to believe there are enemies residing withing.
So long as the Saudis have done this and other measures to reduce civilian casualties, it should be taken as acceptable. However, have they sufficiently done that? There are many reports where Saudis deliberately bombed hospitals (and many of them) resulting in huge casualties. Then there is the 2018 Dahyan Air Strike, where Saudi air force bombed a school bus full of children, resulting in 29 deaths. These are the kinds of reports that has people condemning Saudi actions against Yemen. So conducting air raids could definitely result in a high number of casualties, but since there are many reports that show Saudi troops not being too careful with civilian casualties, it could be said that Saudi troops should stop its campaign.
Secondly, with regards to their blockade of Yemen that has been imposed on the country since 2015. I am not sure if the blockade has been lifted, since there are not many recent reports covering this situation, although there are reports in 2018 by an aid agency in Yemen saying that there have been a misconception that Saudi has lifted its blockade whereas in fact it hasn't. I take it that the blockade is still continuing as it was before, and this could be in parallel with the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Blockading a territory is a tactic in war but considerations have to be made on the civilian population. The Israeli blockade used to be more restrictive but over the years it has eased, and thus there are no issues of famine in Gaza.
But the situation in Yemen is different, with the country already being the poorest in the Middle East prior to the war, the blockade just made the situation worse. The United Nations has repeatedly announced that the country is facing famine and has declared that the Yemen is currently the country with the worse humanitarian crisis.
Saudi should have a clear and quick plan on how to end the war. In 2015, the Saudi army initially estimated that the war would last only a few weeks with the end result being the defeat of the Houthis. But five years on, the Houthis still control substantial areas in Yemen, and the Saudi is still not able to defeat them. The Saudi government must calculate a concrete plan to end the war for the sake of Yemenis. There is an element of "saving face" here, because the Saudis wouldn't want to admit defeat and just withdraw. However, some analysts have suggested that the recent Covid-19 outbreak has given a chance for Saudi to end the war by giving that as an excuse, at least they do not need to openly declare defeat before withdrawing.
It is up to the Saudis to charter their own exit plan. This ceasefire should be strictly enforced before eventually considering withdrawal. For the sake of the civilian populations, the Yemeni Civil War must end soon.
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