{"id":140617,"date":"2018-06-13T12:35:34","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T12:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/yemen-conflict-explained-in-400-words\/"},"modified":"2018-06-13T12:35:34","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T12:35:34","slug":"yemen-conflict-explained-in-400-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/yemen-conflict-explained-in-400-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Yemen conflict explained in 400 words"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A man carries Buthaina Muhammad Mansour, believed to be four or five, rescued from the site of a Saudi-led air strike that killed eight of her family members in Sanaa, Yemen August 25, 2017.\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/10A22\/production\/_102003186_mediaitem102003185.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Reuters<figcaption>Image caption                                      A man carries a wounded child after a Saudi-led airstrike that killed eight members of her family in Sanaa, August 2017                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">For a little more than three years, Yemen has been locked in a seemingly intractable civil war that has killed nearly 10,000 people and pushed millions to the brink of starvation.<\/p>\n<p>The conflict has its roots in the Arab Spring of 2011, when an uprising forced the country&#039;s long-time authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to hand over power to his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.<\/p>\n<p>The political transition was supposed to bring stability to Yemen, one of the Middle East&#039;s poorest nations, but President Hadi struggled to deal with various problems including militant attacks, corruption, food insecurity, and continuing loyalty of many military officers to Saleh.<\/p>\n<p>Fighting began in 2014 when the Houthi Shia Muslim rebel movement took advantage of the new president&#039;s weakness and seized control of northern Saada province and neighbouring areas. The Houthis went on to take the capital Sanaa, forcing Mr Hadi into exile abroad.<\/p>\n<p>The conflict escalated dramatically in March 2015, when Saudi Arabia and eight other mostly Sunni Arab states - backed by the US, UK, and France - began air strikes against the Houthis, with the declared aim of restoring Mr Hadi&#039;s government.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yemen: Who is fighting whom?<\/li>\n<li>Key Houthi official killed in Yemen<\/li>\n<li>The terror of life under siege in Yemen<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Saudi-led coalition feared that continued success of the Houthis would give their rival regional power and Shia-majority state, Iran, a foothold in Yemen, Saudi Arabia&#039;s southern neighbour. Saudi Arabia says Iran is backing the Houthis with weapons and logistical support - a charge Iran denies.<\/p>\n<p>Both sides have since been beset by infighting. The Houthis broke with Saleh and he was killed by Houthi fighters in December 2017. On the anti-Houthi side, militias include separatists seeking independence for south Yemen and factions who oppose the idea.<\/p>\n<p>The stalemate has produced an unrelenting humanitarian crisis, with at least 8.4 million people at risk of starvation and 22.2 million people - 75% of the population - in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN. Severe acute malnutrition is threatening the lives of almost 400,000 children under the age of five.<\/p>\n<p>Yemen&#039;s health system has all but collapsed, while the world&#039;s largest cholera outbreak has killed thousands.<\/p>\n<p>In June 2018, Saudi-backed government forces began an assault on the key rebel-held port of Hudaydah, the entry point for the vast majority of aid going into Yemen and a lifeline for the starving. Aid agencies warned the offensive could make Yemen&#039;s humanitarian catastrophe much worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright ReutersImage caption A man carries a wounded child after a Saudi-led airstrike that killed eight members of her family in Sanaa, August 2017 For a little more than<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}