Jemen

The conflict expanding across the Middle East has now arrived on Yemen’s shores, the senior United Nations official in the country told the Security Council today, warning that attacks by Houthi militants on critical waterways are imperiling global trade and threatening to pull Yemen into the “vortex” of the wider war. “Yemen today faces a more serious risk of return to large-scale conflict than at any point since the 2022 UN-mediated truce,” said Hans Grundberg, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, as he briefed the 15-member Council on recent developments.

The Houthis and Saudi Arabia have increased their military exchanges in the past month and the first test of the tripartite pact long in preparation may come in Yemen. On Thursday, one of the deadliest days in the conflict for years, the Houthis killed at least 58 Yemeni government troops in missile and drone attacks, according to a military source. A separate attack into southern Saudi Arabia, bordering Yemen, injured 11 civilians.

[…] Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei made similar remarks, expressing Tehran’s readiness to facilitate any talks between the two sides. Renewed conflict between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia – which had largely been frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022 – flared up this month when the rebels declared a blockade of Saudi ports and claiming attacks on tankers.

Yemen’s Houthis warned on Thursday they will target Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities and other infrastructure if conflict escalates between the two sides, days after the airport in the rebel-held capital Sanaa was struck.

Yemen's internationally-recognised government launched airstrikes on Sana’a International Airport on Monday to prevent an Iranian aircraft from landing, opening a new chapter in the country's long-running conflict and threatening to unravel years of fragile de-escalation.

Addressing the 15-member Council about the current situation on the ground, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg said that while the 2022 truce between the Houthi rebels and the government continues to hold, the conflict is unresolved, with Yemenis bearing the cost of this uncertainty. 

Human Rights Watch on Sunday demanded that Houthi authorities who have systematically detained more than 70 United Nations employees in Yemen over the course of two years release them immediately, noting that they were captured under baseless accusations of spying for Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia.

The war between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the internationally recognised government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, has caused more than 377,000 direct and indirect deaths and displaced more than 4.5 million people. … The UN says Yemen's 2025 humanitarian response plan has received only 25 percent of the funding it needs – making Yemen's crisis one of the three most underfunded in the world.

More than 1,600 conflict-related detainees in Yemen will be released under a UN-brokered agreement reached after months of negotiations in Jordan, marking the largest prisoner release deal since the country’s civil war began and offering a rare sign of progress in stalled peace efforts.

Yemen has a new government, formed after elements of the old one clashed on the battlefield. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Ahmed Nagi looks at its makeup and its prospects against the backdrop of Middle East war that may draw in the Houthi rebels.