There is a question I ask myself every time Yemen appears in the headlines (which is not often) and it is this: why don’t we care?
This is not rhetoric. It is genuine. Because the numbers are there, available, verifiable. More than 377,000 people have died since 2015. Nearly 24 million, almost 80% of the population, depending on humanitarian aid to survive. More than four million displaced people. And yet, Yemen rarely occupies public conversation with the same urgency as other conflicts.
This text is an attempt to understand what happened, who is fighting, and what it means to live in this.
How it Started
Yemen was already the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula before the war. In September 2014, after years of protests and political instability, the Houthi movement executed a coup, overthrowing the internationally recognized government of President Hadi. It was not a group that emerged from nowhere: the movement arose in the 1990s when Hussein al-Houthi launched a revivalist movement of a branch of Shia Islam called Zaidism, historically marginalized under the Sunni regime.
In March 2015, when Saudi Arabia intervened militarily to restore Hadi's government, the civil war took on its definitive character as a regional power struggle: Yemen became another theater in the pulse between Iran and the Saudi monarchy. Two powers. A country that had almost nothing left. And in the middle, ordinary people who chose neither side.
What It’s Like Inside
This is what I find hardest to process: for many Yemeni children, war is the only reality they know. Literally. There is an entire generation that has grown up without knowing what a country at peace is. They learned to identify the sound of planes before they learned to read.
Hunger stalks the country: more than 17 million people are hungry and 2.3 million children under five suffer from acute malnutrition. Most deaths do not occur in combat, but rather from the impact of the conflict on food prices and the degradation of basic services. They do not die from war. They die from what war destroyed.
Since January 2025, more than 450 health centers have closed partially or completely. A family living in a rural area has no access to a doctor, medicines, or drinking water. The only food that some displaced families can afford in a day is tea with a bit of bread.
And yet, the world continues to look the other way.
Forgetting as Policy
Unlike other conflicts, Yemen does not grab the attention of international media nor are global voices of indignation raised. There are no public figures leading solidarity campaigns.
The reason: Yemen does not have the geopolitical weight that justifies the scandal. There is no directly involved Western power to identify with. There is no simple narrative of good and bad. There is Saudi Arabia, a historical ally of the West, bombing civilians with weapons purchased from the United States and Europe. That is not easy to cover without uncomfortable anyone.
In 2024, the UN Humanitarian Response Plan barely received 38% of the necessary funding, leaving nutrition, health, and education programs uncovered. In April 2025, the interruption of US aid further deepened the neglect.
Why It Matters
Geopolitically, Yemen is not an isolated conflict. The Houthis control the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, through which 12% of global trade flows and 30% of world container traffic passes. Their attacks on the Red Sea since 2023 have already affected global supply chains. What happens in Yemen somehow affects the price of what we buy.
But beyond that: what happens in Yemen says something about what kind of attention we pay to human suffering. If coverage depends on who is suffering and where, then it is not coverage; it is selection.
Yemen not only needs humanitarian aid. It needs humanity, political attention, diplomatic pressure, and public memory. Remembering it is the minimum we should start with.
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