Yemen conflict: Cholera to cluster bombs... and now the water is starting to run out

Yemen is one of  the poorest countries on Earth. Today the UN reports that 22  million of the country’s population of just over 27 million are in need of aid and food  support. More than eight million face starvation.
Last year 2,100 people died from cholera, which affects 900,000 across the country. Natural water resources are disappearing, especially in Sana’a, the capital, home to more than a million.

UN Secretary General António Guterres has described Yemen as “the worst humanitarian crisis” it faces. It has been compounded by years of war. For the past four years a full-blown civil war has drawn in rivals from the region, and killed at least 20,000 civilians.

In 2014 Sana’a was seized by militias of Ansar Allah — the Partisans of God — known as the Houthis, from the  family leading the movement and its principal sect the Zaidis, a branch of Shia Islam.  Zaidi imams had ruled the north of Yemen for nearly a  millennium.

Hussein al-Houthi led the push for power, but was killed in an insurgency in 2004. Today his brother Sayyid Abdul-Malik Houthi is the spiritual guide of the movement.
In 2015 the Houthis declared a new regime and constitution, ending a process to unite the tribes and north and south Yemen called the National  Dialogue. The elected president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, fled to Aden where he now resides intermittently. In 2015 both al Qaeda and Islamic State were highly active in Yemen. The local al Qaeda leader was killed by an  American drone strike.
In the civil war, a coalition headed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE backed the forces loyal to ousted president Hadi. Iran and its Lebanese ally and client Hezbollah backed the Houthis. So the war has dragged on for four years.
The 16-power coalition is blamed for the sea blockade round Yemen’s coast preventing aid, especially food, getting to the



starving population. Last March the World Food Programme ware-house was burned down in  the Houthi port of Al Hudaydah.
The damage caused by mortars, mines and aerial bombing has made the humanitarian crisis worse. The UN has condemned the outside interference of both Iran and of Saudi Arabia, which has been accused of indiscriminate bombing of Houthi communities. In 2016 a hundred people were killed and wounded after a funeral was hit in a coalition air strike. Last month some 20 were reported killed in an air attack which struck a wedding party in the northern province of Sadah, home of the Houthi clan.
The coalition air forces are accused of using cluster bombs, forbidden by international convention. This has drawn protests in Britain and France, principal suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

In an unusual twist, the Houthi leadership forged an alliance of convenience with another ousted president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was forced out in 2012 after 20 years in power. Having first befriended him, the Houthi leadership had him killed in Sana’a last December.
The Zaidis descend from Zaid bin Ali, the grandson of Ali the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, and acknowledged as the Fifth Imam. This earns the sect the name “fivers” as opposed to “twelvers” who recognise the 12th Imam and descendant of the Prophet Muhammad al-Mahdi as their guide.
The Zaidis have been known for tolerance. As they came to power in the wake of the Arab Spring, the Houthis said they supported a civil constitution and toleration, especially to Yemen’s Jews, provided they weren’t backers of Israel. This makes them strange bed-fellows with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
But the biggest problem no one seems to be answering is the long-term lack of water. Rampant diphtheria and cholera are signs of a wrecked water supply. Soon, for many millions of  Yemenis, there could be no water at all.