War, Hunger and Migration: Yemen as a Case Study

The 2011 Arab Spring was the spark that stimulated and erupted other revolutions in the Arab region including Yemen. It resulted in the uprising to the country’s long-term autocratic president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. After the collapse of Saleh’s administration, his power was ceded to the vice-president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, in 2012. However, the political transition did not achieve the stability of the country; instead President Hadi had to struggle to tackle the realm’s turmoil and was not able to maintain the order since Saleh was still authoritative and influenced certain groups who were loyal to him in a country (Juneau, 2013). The conflict began in 2014 when Houthi Shia Muslism movement took benefit the new leader’s weakness and seized the capital Sana’a and the president Hadi also fled to Saudi Arabia after the failure of Aden to Houthi. The conflict intensified dramatically in March 2015, when Saudi Arabia-led coalition initiated air strikes against the Houthis, with the stated intention of reestablishing Hadi's government (Nunlist, 2015). It is reported that three million people have been displaced and millions of Yemenis trapped in the conflict. They are at highrisk of starvation and disease. Some of Yemenis have fled to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Djibouto, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan to escape from the cataclysmic sets of condition in the country (UNHCR, 2017). UN reported that most of the Saudi-led coalition air strikes have targeted non-military zones such as market places, schools, hospitals, and wedding ceremonies and killed thousands of civilians (Sharp, 2018). UNHRC stated that all members of the coalition are pursuing their own agendas and each side of the conflict is said to have violated humanitarian crime and international law. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (2018), 22.2 million people are in need of humanitarian aid in Yemen in 2017 and half of the population are suffering a serious famine since the important entry point for humanitarian support and food imports have been blocked for security reasons. UN stated Yemen crisis as the worst humanitarian crisis and limited spectacle to end this tragic situation is seen until today. The UN’s most recent figure reported that thousands of Yemenis have been killed in chaos while millions of people have been displaced since the conflict has been going on for years. UN states the Yemen crisis as ‘world worst humanitarian crisis’ since severe; hunger, death and disease are rampant due to these circumstances. Based on this report our (research) question is: What are the main causes for this man-made disaster which left Yemenis civilians in the tragedy of hunger and displacement from their household / migration? This paper aims to understand whether and how the hunger crisis that occurred after the Yemen revolution correlates with the number of Yemeni migrants and refugees. Three major variables are taken into consideration: leadership, international community intervention and hunger crisis. This is to argue that these three variables have major responsibility for the humanitarian crisis occurring in Yemen and the huge number of people who left their state either to escaping death or dreadful conditions of living. The findings in this paper will be based on the secondary sources of reports, articles, journals and academic literature.