Southern separatists are tearing Yemen apart
SAUDI ARABIA’S air strikes in Yemen have often missed their mark, causing hundreds of civilian casualties. But when the kingdom bombed its own allies on August 11th it was no mistake. The target was southern separatists, who had seized the city of Aden from Yemen’s internationally recognised government a day earlier. On paper, at least, the Saudis, the separatists and the government are all on the same side in Yemen’s war—members of a fragile alliance battling Iranian-backed Shia rebels called the Houthis.
It has been more than four years since the Houthis pushed the government out of Sana’a, the capital, and captured most of the country. The Saudi-led coalition has since retaken the south, but it has failed to oust the Houthis from the north (see map). The fighting has shattered what was already the region’s poorest country. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. Hunger and cholera stalk the living. As if Yemen were not miserable enough, the war is growing more chaotic, making a lasting peace harder to imagine.
