Truce offers besieged Yemenis some relief, but not enough

Fuel and flights are coming in, fighting has died down, and Yemenis see a glimmer of hope after seven years of grueling war. But a fragile United Nations-brokered truce that made it all happen could still collapse — and one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises could get even worse.

Mistrust between the Houthi rebels and Saudi-led coalition runs deep and has derailed previous cease-fire attempts. Both sides also accuse each other of weaponizing aid and worry that a pause in fighting is simply a tactic to regroup militarily and gain leverage ahead of negotiations.

But there is a “palpable sense of relief” throughout the country, Renata Rendon, the Yemen advocacy director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Devex.

“If you're a Yemeni person tucking your children into bed tonight, you don’t have to worry about hearing airstrikes,” said Rendon by Zoom from the Houthi-controlled capital of Sanaa.

The lull in fighting has had an “immediate impact” on people’s day-to-day lives, said Philippe Duamelle, UNICEF’s representative to Yemen.

“As someone who has been living in Yemen for almost two years now, I can tell you we feel the difference,” he told Devex. “However, the fundamentals have not changed. Access to health care, access to water, access to basic services haven't changed.”

Geopolitical battleground

Yemen was already the poorest country in the Arab world before a coalition led by Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia launched a military campaign against Houthi rebels aligned with Iran, Riyadh’s Shiite rival.

In 2015, the Houthis, who for years had complained of marginalization under Sunni rule, ousted Yemen’s internationally recognized — but internally unpopular — government, which had been installed by the Saudi-led Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf after longtime strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh was unseated during the Arab Spring.

Since then, the country of approximately 30 million has become a patchwork battleground between the Houthis, who control much of the north, and the exiled Saudi-backed government in the south, where myriad armed tribes jostle for territory — with civilians caught in the crosshairs.

By the end of 2021, an estimated 377,000 people had died in the war, according to the U.N. Development Programme. Most weren’t killed on the front lines but by hunger and preventable diseases caused by the fighting, which decimated access to food, water, and health care. Today, some 80% of Yemen’s population needs humanitarian aid and over 17 million face acute food insecurity, including more than 2 million children.

Surprising truce

But a truce reached between the Houthis and the Saudis in April — extended by two months in June — has surprised many Yemen observers.

The deal has allowed a small number of flights to resume at Sanaa’s airport and sharply increased fuel shipments passing through Hodeida port.

It has also resulted in the first real cessation of hostilities in years, which has led to a significant drop in civilian casualties.

The reopening of Sanaa’s airport has helped patients who need lifesaving medical treatment to leave the country, Rendon said.

Meanwhile, 450,000 metric tons of fuel were imported in the first two months of the truce, she added — more than all of 2021.

“In Sanaa, for instance, people used to queue for days to get 20 or 40 liters of fuel. Now fuel is available in most of the stations,” UNICEF’s Duamelle said.

Limited relief

The truce, however, is far from perfect.

“Fuel prices just went up by around 10% to make the cost of a tank of gas for a small car equal to a civil servant's monthly salary,” said Abdul-Ghani al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies.

Food is also out of reach for many because of soaring prices.

“Prior to the war in Ukraine, Yemen was already grappling with global commodity price hikes and a dwindling economy,” Veena Ali-Khan, a Yemen specialist at the International Crisis Group, told Devex, adding that around 41% of the country’s wheat products are imported from Ukraine and Russia.

The Houthis have also come under fire for not reopening roads to Taiz, where government-aligned forces have largely maintained a stronghold.

Despite its imperfections, “the current truce is the longest period of calm in Yemen since the start of the conflict,” Ali-Khan said.

“It definitely demonstrates an effort by the parties of the conflict to end the suffering of millions of Yemenis, at least in the short term, and it certainly also signals that peaceful solutions to the conflict are an option if there's political will,” Rendon said. “Our feeling is that if they can hold the truce for three months, they can hold it for a year, and they can work toward a longer-term peace process.”

Yawning gaps

Not everyone is as optimistic. Ali-Khan said both sides need to overcome deep mistrust for a comprehensive peace process to begin.

“The Huthis and the government both accuse one another of taking advantage of the unprecedented peace-period to buy time and prepare for a fresh offensive,” she wrote in a message to Devex.

Al-Iryani said the truce can hold as long as the two sides are talking but doubts it will yield any breakthroughs.

He said the main sticking points are whether the Houthis can distance themselves from Iran and whether the Saudis will pony up money to rebuild the country they’ve bombarded for years.

“Iran is their insurance policy. They can't do it,” he said of the Houthis. “If they distance themselves from Iran, what guarantees do they have that the Saudis will keep their end of the bargain?

“And on the money, the Houthis are expecting tens of billions of dollars [to rebuild], and the Saudis clearly are not ready to make that kind of commitment,” he added, noting that Riyadh would want other Persian Gulf monarchies and international players to chip in.

Duamelle said he hopes donors will consider long-term investments to rebuild Yemen because humanitarian aid is only a Band-Aid for a country “on the verge of total collapse.”

But al-Iryani cautioned against an influx of reconstruction money, saying it increases reliance on foreign largesse, “which destroys the local economy, and they end up in a much worse shape than when they started. So I'm personally happy to see as little money as is feasible to get Yemen back on track.”

Yemen fatigue

For now, too much money isn’t exactly a problem. The U.N. has appealed for $4.3 billion in humanitarian aid for Yemen. Just over 25% of that has been funded.

Not only does Yemen have to contend with donor fatigue, but it now has to compete with Ukraine, which has consumed humanitarian bandwidth.

That has some aid groups looking to U.S. President Joe Biden to bring Yemen up during his July 15-16 trip to Saudi Arabia.

The rapprochement is a dramatic turnaround for a president who heaped criticism on Saudi Arabia for its human rights abuses — but who now needs Saudi help to tame skyrocketing oil prices.

The about-face reinforces Riyadh’s belief “that the US only reaches out when in need of a favour,” Ali-Khan wrote, predicting that the Saudis will pressure Biden to provide security guarantees to counter Houthi strikes on the border.

But al-Iryani faults former U.S. President Donald Trump for his deferential approach to Saudi Arabia, including its de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, who drew international condemnation for an indiscriminate bombing campaign in Yemen, where the kingdom now finds itself stuck in a military quagmire.

Biden should take the opposite tack, al-Iryani argues.

“The best that the U.S. can do to the Saudis is to be firm. It is in the best interest of the Saudis as it is in the best interest of Yemen to be firm on no escalation. What could not be done militarily in seven years is not going to be done militarily in the next year, so let's stop the bloodshed.”

Even if the fighting stops — a big if — Yemen’s prospects are grim.

“The bottom line is that the end of the conflict won’t mean the end of suffering for Yemeni people,” said Rendon.

“Roads, bridges, markets, houses have been destroyed and need to be rebuilt. Millions of children are out of school and need to be brought back into school. Teachers and civil servants need to be paid for their work. The economy needs to be rebuilt. And even if this conflict ends, we still are going to be facing one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world.”