Published 2020-05-15
Abstract
Decades of rising tensions and several years of civil war later, Yemen and its dire humanitarian crisis have been forgotten by much of the mainstream media and the West. The effects of this humanitarian crisis have left two thirds of Yemen’s population in need of humanitarian assistance and thousands of Yemeni people dead. Yemen’s humanitarian crisis contains a triple threat to the people of Yemen -- conflict, famine, and cholera. Given the nature of the topic, in order to provide a balanced and well-rounded assessment of the situation, research was conducted through news articles from the United States, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations, as well as research from the World Bank. In this paper, the causes of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis are examined,
including Yemen’s civil war between government forces and Houthi rebels and the intervention of foreign powers, such as Saudi Arabia and the international coalition it leads. By examining these causes in conjunction with the harsh realities of the humanitarian crisis, I argue that the global community must uphold their responsibility to protect while guarding against states’ self- serving actions at the expense of the masses.
Note: The research and writing for this paper were completed in February and early March 2019. Thus, the research presented in this paper reflects the humanitarian crisis in Yemen as of early 2019. Statistics and analysis may have changed since then.