In late 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations that swept across the Middle East and North Africa forced strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after 33 years at Yemen’s helm. What ensued was an internationally brokered agreement in which then-Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was put in charge of steering the country’s transition toward a new political system.
But three years on, national reconciliation efforts — which culminated in the publication of a draft constitution earlier this year — failed to achieve consensus. Dissatisfaction of rival political groups with the proposed federal structure ultimately led Houthi fighters, whose power base lies in the northern highlands, to seize power and expand militarily into Yemen’s south.
In light of Yemen’s history — one of rival factions and shifting alliances, with occasional shaky dominance by a region or tribe — experts have noted that the crumbling of Hadi’s government hardly comes as a surprise. But amid the intensification of armed clashes and Saudi-led airstrikes, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, has warned that the country is “on the verge of total collapse.”