Three years after a popular uprising against Ali Abdullah Saleh`s thirty-three years of autocratic rule in Yemen forced him to stand down, the country is now embroiled in a bitter civil war and a Saudi-led military intervention with catastrophic consequences for the population. It has been more than five months since the Saudi-led regional coalition began a bombing campaign, coupled with an air and naval blockade of Yemen, ostensibly to force out Houthi forces and their allies and restore the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had assumed power in the wake of Saleh`s departure. Reports indicate that upwards of 4,500 have been killed in the fighting so far, at least five hundred of them children. Twenty-one million Yemenis are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance now, more than anywhere in the world, including Syria.
Shahram Aghamir spoke with Sanaʻa-based political analyst Hisham Al-Omeisy about Yemen’s catastrophic humanitarian crisis and the impacts of the Saudi-led military attacks on the country’s socio-political landscape.