Why is the yemen civil war happening
Why is Yemen at war? | Start Here
let's talk about what's going on in
Yemen the United Nations says it has the
worst humanitarian crisis on the planet
and in the world with all sorts of
problems that is saying something
Yemen went from being the heart of
ancient Arabia to one of the poorest
countries in the Middle East and for the
last five years it's been torn apart by
war local groups on the ground are
fighting each other while a saudi-led
coalition bombs from above and caught in
the fighting are millions of Yemenis
desperately struggling to survive so how
did things get so bad and is there a way
out I'm Sandra Gottman and this is start
here Al Jazeera's brand new show where
we break down all the big stories from
the fast-paced and often confusing world
of news the first thing to know about
the war in Yemen is that there's a lot
of players starting with this man Ali
Abdullah Saleh he was Yemen's president
for 20 years since 1990 this is a man
who once compared ruling over Yemen to
dancing on the heads of snakes
it's no wonder that during the Arab
Spring of 2011 Yemenis rose up against
solid in the hope that things might get
better but they didn't and this is where
the next big player comes in Saudi
Arabia Saudi Arabia is the most
influential member of a club of
countries known as the Gulf Cooperation
Council and it was the GCC that oversaw
negotiations to finally force Saleh out
the GCC's deal helped install a new
government in Yemen and put
vice-president of jabba Mansour Hadi in
charge Yemen continued to suffer under
president Hadi after the Revolution and
the initiatives that had come out of the
Revolution were brokered a Gulf Powers
who simply appeared to return the same
old elites to power so by 2014 some of
Yemen's factions began
to lose patience one of them was the
houthis another major player in this war
now the Houthis are a Shia Muslim
minority from northern Yemen they say
they've been marginalized and often
rebelled against the government and
during the Arab Spring they were very
involved in the uprisings against a
solid but here's the twist the Houthis
and Saleh were both sidelined by the
GCC's plans for Yemen's new government
so the former enemies joined forces the
Houthis together with some of Sally's
allies still in the army took over
Yemen's capital Sanaa in 2014 Hadi fled
to Saudi Arabia and then the Saudis
along with several other countries
formed a coalition to return their man
Hadi to power and Saudi Arabia expressed
three main war aims it wanted to restore
the government of President Adi it
wanted to protect its own southern
border and to prevent Yemen from
fragmenting and it wanted to contain the
perceived growing influence of Iran in
the region we'll come back to Iran in a
second but first we have to talk about
the saudi-led intervention it was a
campaign of relentless airstrikes more
than 19,000 attacks in the last four
years according to the latest reports
Saudi led forces say they've been
targeting the enemy but rights groups
accused the coalition of bombing dozens
of hospitals and schools killing
thousands of yem
Millions which brings us to Yemen's
immense humanitarian crisis in this war
it's not just the fighting that's
causing all the suffering even aid is
being used as a weapon in 2015 the
saudi-led coalition created a land sea
and air barrier around Yemen making it
almost impossible for supplies to get in
or out the Houthis are also blamed for
blocking destroying or taking aid and
Yemenis desperately need it today's only
meal is a plate of plain boiled rice
between the family cholera cases are
spreading fast
doctors are facing a severe shortage of
drugs in a country of 29 million people
the UN says 24 million depend on some
kind of humanitarian help that's nearly
the entire population of Australia more
than 11 million given in need of
humanitarian aid nearly every single
Yemeni child this is rapidly becoming
the world's worst humanitarian disaster
now let's get back to the port because
fighting is still going on but the
dynamics have changed the Houthi and
Saleh Alliance we talked about earlier
broke down in 2017 after they'd fought
the saudi-led forces for three years
in fact sally's switched sides on TV
saying he wanted to talk to the
coalition two days later the Houthis
killed him today the goosies still
control Yemen's capital sana and for now
they have an upper hand in the war but
Saudi Arabia thinks it's because they're
getting help from Iran
now as the biggest Shia power in the
region
Iran has openly supported the Houthis
but denies backing
militarily but Saudi Arabia and others
insist Iran does have a hand in the
fighting recently Saudi Arabia's oil
facilities were attacked the Houthis say
they did it but the coalition and its
allies aren't buying it it is clear
based on detailed exploitation conducted
by Saudi United States and other
international investigative teams that
the weapons used in the attack were
Iranian produced so when people talk
about Yemen being a proxy war this is
what they mean it's the fact that two
major rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran are
backing opposite sides in a foreign war
so are all the other countries in Saudis
coalition plus allies like the United
States France and the United Kingdom
who've been supplying them with weapons
and logistical support
not to mention all of Yemen's armed
groups including the Houthis
secessionist groups in the South
al-qaeda and ISIL when the war is over
the UN says they could all be liable for
atrocities in Yemen shocked induce
ovulation some shisha people do
constitute they came together so this is
where we're at a stalemate of
finger-pointing and fighting by all of
those different players
despite the UN's many attempts at peace
deals and cease fires
but as with any more experts say
diplomacy will be the only way to put an
end to the nightmare in Yemen
[Music]
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