Beginning in 2011 a revolt to overthrow Yemen’s authoritarian government supported by most of the people forced its leader Ali Abdullah Saleh to give up his power and hand it to Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Shortly after coming to power the new president was engulfed with the country’s issues along with most of the army feeling loyalty to the nation’s former leader. All this began to worry Yemen’s neighbor Saudi Arabia and war appearing on the horizon all at the expense of the Yemmni people.

In the following years an extremist group formally known as the “Partisans of God” now The Houthis  began seizing land and captured the capital forcing the President to flee the country. Saudi Arabia began fearing the rebels would ally themselves with its rival Iran, in march 26 2015 Saudi Arabia led a coalition of nine countries to restore the former President Hadi.  The coalition sought to put down The Houthis driving them out of the south of Yemen however they failed to take the north.

The Houthis later allied themselves with Ali Abdullah Saleh due to a common enemy with ideas of forming a political council that would govern Yemen, later in December 2017 Saleh broke his alliance with The Houthis and called those who still followed him to fight them however Saleh was killed and most of his forces were defeated. What remained of his battered army joined the Saudi Arabian forces to battle against The Houthis. In order to recapture the city Hudaydah, a lifeblood that would prevent millions from starving.

In this reporter’s opinion there isn’t really any side you could call good, the only option being the lesser of evils. While the authoritarian leader needed to be removed, I believe that President Hadi’s poor leadership and mismanagement is what greatly accelerated the civil war and later conflict. As for Saudi Arabia, while at first glance their intentions seem noble they entered Yemen out of fear of a new possible enemy and not to restore any democracy or help the people living there. One can only hope that The Houthis are put down, not for the gain of President Hadi or Saudi Arabia but for some well needed relief of stress for the Yemeni people. However even as we go deeper into 2022 there seems to be no end to the conflict.