War between Saudi Arabia and Yemen: the story of the tragedy that no one talks about

A tragic civil war is underway in Yemen which has lasted since 2014, where Saudi Arabia directly, as well as Iran indirectly, is playing a decisive role.
If we then consider that in the more divided territory of Yemen there are also areas of the country controlled by ISIS and Al-Qa'ida, then the chessboard looks more and more like what we have seen recently in Syria.
The siege by nine Sunni Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the United States, against the Shiite rebels, close to Iran, who have controlled the capital San'a since 2015 is causing endless suffering to civilians.
The blockade of the arrival of any supplies and medicines is leading around 17 million Yemenis to starvation: between fighting, disease and famine, it is estimated that this conflict has so far caused the death of over 300,000 people.
This is a war that has been raging for years amidst the general silence of the West and the United Nations.
The media here started talking about Yemen only when the Houthi rebels started launching missiles towards Israel following the outbreak of war on 7 October 2023 between the Jewish State and Hamas.
read also Third World War: the five places where it could break out in 2022 Saudi Arabia and the civil war in Yemen After a long division, in 1990 North Yemen and South Yemen decided to reunite in a single state, with San 'to which becomes the new capital.
President is Ali Abdullah Saleh, who at the time had been at the helm of the North since 1978.
Following the revolts in the southern part of the country in 2012 in the Arab Spring which shocked many Islamic countries, Saleh resigned and in his place the Sunni Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi arrives, with the task of leading Yemen for two years until new elections.
However, given the fear that the elections could only have been a mirage and that Hadi's reign could continue for other years, in February 2015 the armed Shiite Houthi group, coming from the north of the country, conquered the capital San'a and forced President Hadi resigns and takes refuge in the south in Aden, which thus becomes a second capital of Yemen.
From that chaos we arrive at a country divided in two: in the North there are the Shiites with Saleh's government in the capital San'a, while in the South in the city of Aden the ousted President Hadi has taken office, the only one recognized by West and the United Nations.
In all of this, Al-Qa'ida managed to gain possession of vast areas in the eastern part of the country, with ISIS also establishing itself in several villages, making its tragic voice heard with attacks carried out especially against the Shiites of San 'to.
In March 2015, Sunni Saudi Arabia placed itself at the head of a coalition of Sunni countries also including Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.
This Arab League made up of nine countries and led by Riyadh thus began a massive bombing in Yemen in the territories controlled in the North by the Houthi rebels, who since then have practically resisted this siege with the feared support only of Iran, the largest Shiite state.
The drama of civilians The state of perpetual siege has, however, weakened the alliance between the Houthis and the Ras of the North, former president Saleh.
In fact, the latter, after having sought refuge across the border in vain, was captured and killed by the rebels who were his allies until recently.
North Yemen is therefore now in total chaos and is controlled by the Houthis.
Given the weakness created by the internal feud, bombings by the Sunni coalition have increased, which is worsening the humanitarian situation even further.
In addition to the soldiers killed, the toll of civilian victims is also very high.
It is not only Saudi bombs that massacre civilians but also hunger (Yemen is the poorest state in the Middle East) and cholera.
Even if we see it as a disease that has now been eradicated, in Yemen we are talking about at least 500,000 people infected, with cholera causing the death of 2,000 people in the last three months of 2017 alone.
The blockade of neighboring Arab countries imposed on San'a is crushing the population of the North, amid what appears to be the general indifference of the United Nations, which has done nothing so far to save the civilian population from this atrocious end.
The indifference of the West In 2016, speaking about the problematic situation in Syria, Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the UN, declared that "death by starvation used as a weapon represents a war crime".
It is a pity, however, that the same thought was not given to the civil war in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has never been sanctioned for the bombings and, to make matters worse, it has always opposed the creation of humanitarian corridors to allow food and medicine to be sent to the civilian population.
In practice, hunger and epidemics would be used as a siege weapon, to convince the Houthi rebels to give in given that the bombs dropped on San'a have so far not produced the desired effects.
The symbolic image of this tragedy is that of Amal, a Yemeni girl photographed in a refugee camp by Pulitzer Prize winner Tyler Hicks a few days before dying of starvation at just seven years old.
#AmalHussain, the malnourished seven-year-old Yemeni girl, has died.
The right to life denied.
pic.twitter.com/4Hlghv5H9n — Nicholas Ferrante (@Nich_Ferrante) November 2, 2018 Then there was the infamous massacre of children, with 43 dead and 60 injured when a bus was hit while on its way to a market located in the north of the country, in addition to the most recent bombing by the Saudi air force of a Save the Children hospital which caused 7 deaths, including 4 children.
The feeling is that the war in Yemen is another piece of the delicate chess game being played in the Middle East.
The rebels who control the capital San'a are Shiites like Iran, historic allies of Russia and the Assad regime in Syria.
On the other hand, it can be said that the rest of the Middle East, including Isis, is on the contrary Sunni.
For the United States and Saudi Arabia, toppling the Houthi rebels in Yemen would mean weakening Iran, a great enemy of both countries.
When drones attacked the Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities on September 14, 2019, Saudi Arabia was forced in one fell swoop to halve its daily oil production.
Immediately after the attack, the United States accused the Houthi rebels and Iran of being responsible, threatening harsh consequences: it took a surge in the cost of oil to turn the international spotlight on the war in Yemen.
Now, however, the rebels are ready to play a leading role in the war in Israel too.
The Yemeni armed forces "confirm that they will continue to carry out qualitative attacks with missiles and drones until the Israeli aggression ends," read a Houthi military statement broadcast on Al-Masirah television.
The war from Israel is on the verge of spreading to the entire Middle East and Yemen could be one of the hottest fronts in this possible regional conflict.