LONDON, 02 Nov. - (ANA)  - Over 10,000 civilians have been killed and 14 million people are facing starvation. This is the stark situation in Yemen and why it will be difficult to end.

 

The real number is probably much higher, but verifying casualties in Yemen’s remote areas is extremely difficult. 

 

Saudi Arabia thought a bombing campaign would quickly crush its enemies in Yemen but three years later, the Houthis refuse to give up and the number of casualties keeps increasing.

 

The United Nations has warned that soon the conflict could become the worst famine seen in the world in 100 years. Disease is rampant, including the world’s worst modern outbreak of cholera.

 

It is tempting to see a certain poetic justice in the Houthis’ vengeful rage against Saudi Arabia. Their movement was born, three decades ago, largely as a reaction to Riyadh’s reckless promotion of its own intolerant strain of Salafi Islam in the Houthi heartland of northwestern Yemen. Since then, the Saudis — with the help of Yemen’s former ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh — have done all they could to corrupt or compromise every political force strong enough to pose a threat. The Houthis are a result: a band of fearless insurgents who know how to fight but little else. 

 

The Houthis have little will or capacity to run a modern state, and at times have seemed unwilling or unable to negotiate for peace. But this, too, is partly a measure of Saudi Arabia’s fatal arrogance toward its neighbour, a long-term policy of keeping Yemen weak and divided.

 

That policy may now be bringing the Saudis’ worst fears to life. Houthi officials say they have studied the Viet Cong’s tactics, and routinely refer to the war as the quagmire that will bring down the House of Saud. 

 

The shocking dismemberment and murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month — apparently at the behest of crown prince Mohamed bin Salman — began to cast the crown prince and his Yemen war in a new light.

 

It is now time to sue for peace and the international community will be behind any initiative that would stop the war in Yemen.  - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/02 November 2018 - - -