Soft on Saudi Arabia s war on Yemen

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Saudi-Yemen crisis explained
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unrest, conflicts and war
Saudi Arabia s war on Yemen is going on and on. But 16 months after a Saudi-led co
alition started bombing rebels in the poor Arab country, none of the declared ob
jectives of the war seem to have been met. The Shia Houthi rebels still control
huge swathes of territory, including the capital Sana a. President Abd Rabbuh Mans
ur Hadi, on whose behalf Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen, hasn t established cred
ible authority even in territories technically ruled by his government. The war
and the resultant chaos have helped al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula steadily e
xpand its influence in Yemen. Over the past year and a half, Saudi Arabia has re
peatedly come under international criticism for its brute use of force and lack
of interest in finding a settlement to the civil war. UN Secretary General Ban K
i-moon admitted earlier this year that the UN did not blacklist Saudi Arabia as
a violator of children s rights because it had threatened to cut off funding to th
e organisation. The statistics are chilling. Since the bombing started in March
2015, over 6,400 people have been killed, half of them civilians, according to t
he World Health Organisation. More than 30,000 people have been left injured, an
d about 2.5 million remain displaced. An estimated 9.4 million Yemeni children a
re in urgent need of humanitarian aid, as the country grapples with food, power
and water shortages. These numbers suggest that Yemen, a country of 24 million p
eople, is facing one of the worst