The Yemen War and the Humanitarian Crisis

On 21 September 2014, the Houthi movement — a Zaydi Shia revivalist group originating in northern Yemen's Saada province in the 1990s — completed the capture of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, after weeks of street protests against the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi over cuts to fuel subsidies. The capture followed the Houthi takeover of Amran in July. Under the "Peace and National Partnership Agreement" signed the same day, the government resigned and the Houthis gained unprecedented influence over state institutions. The event is conventionally dated as the beginning of the civil war. The Houthis framed their advance as a revolution against a corrupt government and foreign-backed marginalization; Hadi's government and Gulf states framed it as an Iranian-backed coup.

Location: Sanaa, Yemen

On 6 February 2015, the Houthi political leadership announced the dissolution of Yemen's House of Representatives and the formation of a Revolutionary Committee to govern the country. The announcement came weeks after Houthi forces had seized the presidential compound in Sanaa on 20 January, confining President Hadi to his residence. On 21 February, Hadi escaped to the southern port of Aden and declared the Houthi takeover illegitimate, pledging to retake the capital. The coup attempt transformed a political crisis into a full constitutional crisis and set the stage for the foreign intervention that followed.

Location: Sanaa, Yemen

On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nine countries — including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan — and supported logistically by the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, began airstrikes against Houthi positions in Yemen at Hadi's request. The intervention aimed to restore the Hadi government and prevent what the coalition framed as Iranian expansion on the Arabian Peninsula. It began the largest Arab military operation in decades. The Houthis and Iran framed the intervention as foreign aggression against Yemen; the UN and international humanitarian organizations would later document thousands of civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes.

Location: Sanaa, Yemen

In July-August 2015, coalition-backed forces — including UAE-trained Southern Resistance and Southern Movement fighters — recaptured the southern port city of Aden from Houthi forces, which had been driven south after the Saudi intervention began. President Hadi returned to Aden from Saudi exile. The government was effectively confined to the south, while the Houthis retained control of the capital Sanaa and most of the north. Despite coalition air superiority, the war became a multi-front stalemate, with neither side able to deliver a decisive military victory.

Location: Aden, Yemen

Between 2016 and 2018, Yemen experienced what the United Nations called the world's worst famine in a century, with an estimated 85,000 children under five dying of acute malnutrition. In 2017, Yemen also suffered the largest cholera outbreak in modern history, with over one million suspected cases and more than 2,000 deaths. The crises were attributed to a combination of factors: the Saudi-led coalition's blockade of Yemeni ports (which restricted food and medical imports), airstrikes on civilian infrastructure, the collapse of public services (especially after the central bank was relocated from Sanaa in 2016), and the mass displacement of civilians. International humanitarian organizations regularly characterized the situation as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Location: Yemen (national)

In early December 2017, the long-standing tactical alliance between the Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh (removed during the 2011 Arab Spring) broke down. On 2 December, Saleh announced that he was switching sides and was ready for talks with the Saudi-led coalition, in what he called a "new page" with Saudi Arabia. The Houthis reacted by attacking his positions. In the Battle of Sanaa from 2-7 December, Houthi forces killed Saleh as he attempted to flee the capital toward Marib. His death removed a major potential broker and deepened the conflict, leaving the Houthis in undisputed control of Sanaa.

Location: Sanaa, Yemen

On 13 December 2018, the warring parties signed the Stockholm Agreement, brokered by UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths after three months of negotiations. The agreement included a ceasefire in the key port city of Hodeidah, an agreement on the exchange of prisoners (about 15,000 detainees), and understandings on the besieged city of Taiz. The Hodeidah ceasefire held imperfectly, and prisoner exchanges were slow, but the agreement established a framework for further negotiations. A broader UN-brokered nationwide truce was announced on 2 April 2022 and extended in June 2022, with the formal truce expiring in October 2022 but largely holding through the period.

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

On 7 April 2022, President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi resigned and transferred power to an eight-member Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) headed by Rashad al-Alimi, with Southern Transitional Council (STC) President Aidarus al-Zoubaidi as Vice President. The transfer was brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the two main coalition powers, who had grown frustrated with Hadi's inability to stabilize the situation and wanted a more representative governing structure. The PLC integrated southern and northern factions, but the Houthis rejected the new arrangement as illegitimate. The resignation closed a chapter of the war but did not change the stalemate.

Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

In late October 2023, following the start of the Israel-Gaza war, the Houthis began attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, in what they described as solidarity with Palestinians. The attacks disrupted a major global trade route, raising shipping insurance costs and forcing many vessels to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope. In response, the United States and the United Kingdom launched airstrikes on Houthi positions starting in January 2024, and the United States launched a major campaign of strikes between March and May 2025. The Houthi movement also launched direct missile and drone attacks on Israel. The crisis drew the Yemen war into a broader Middle Eastern confrontation, and the attacks continued as of 2026.

Location: Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, Yemen, Israel

In December 2025, the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), nominally part of the internationally recognized government, launched an offensive against government forces in southern Yemen, seizing the Hadhramaut and al-Mahrah governorates. The offensive reflected a power struggle within the anti-Houthi coalition and the wider regional competition between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the two main coalition powers. In January 2026, a government counter-offensive, supported by Saudi airstrikes, retook the two governorates, and the STC was formally dissolved. The episode showed the fragility of the anti-Houthi coalition even as the broader war with the Houthis continued.

Location: Hadhramaut and al-Mahrah governorates, Yemen

In July 2026, amid rising tensions between the internationally recognized government and the Houthis, the government launched airstrikes on Sanaa International Airport. The Houthis retaliated by launching airstrikes on Saudi Arabia, threatening to end the 2022 truce. Saudi Arabia began preparing for a possible sea and ground offensive against Houthi-controlled Yemen. As of mid-2026, the conflict remains the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with over 377,000 dead (through 2022, with the toll continuing to rise), 4.5 million people displaced, and 21.6 million in need of humanitarian aid. The war is the subject of continuing UN-mediated negotiations.

Location: Yemen