5.3. Yemen Conflict

♤ Yemen’s history is marked by foreign interventions that have failed to reckon with the complexity of the country’s politics. In the nineteen-seventies, the country was divided into South Yemen and North Yemen.

♤ In 1978, Ali Abdullah Saleh, took power in the North, when the two Yemens unified, in

1990, it was under Saleh’s leadership.

♤ The conflict has its roots in the failure of a political transition supposed to bring stability to Yemen following an Arab Spring uprising that forced its longtime authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to hand over power to his deputy Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, in 2011.

♤ Disillusioned with the transition, many ordinary Yemenis - including Sunnis - supported the Houthis and in late 2014 and early 2015, the rebels took over Sanaa.

♤ Yemen’s most recent conflict began in early 2015, when Houthi rebels, from the country’s ♤ The Saudi coalition is made up of nine Middle Eastern and African countries, and is supported by the United States.coalition to tighten its blockade of Yemen.♤ The situation in Yemen is, the UN says, the world's worst man-made humanitarian disaster.5.3.2. India ♤ Until there is a UN mandate for the external intervention in Yemen, it will serve India’s citizens better if the government retains its impartiality on events in the region, which is ridden with fault-lines. Stability and regional security remains a chief concern for India in a region that is significant for it.