3/26
“If the warring sides care about Yemen, they should make concessions and save us from this plight,” says Suha Salem, a Yemeni woman, in an al-Jazeera article reporting female civilians’ experiences with the war.
A YouGov poll in France showed that 75% of French people want President Macron to suspend arms exports to Saudi Arabia and other countries involved in the Yemeni war.
An International Rescue Committee report found that the Saudi-led coalition is depriving civilians in Yemen of basic healthcare, killing far more than the fighting itself. According to the report, 9.3 million Yemenis are denied life-saving health services, while only half of health facilities in Yemen are operational.
“Let us not fool ourselves. Cholera is going to come back,” UNICEF’s Middle East director, Geert Cappelaere, said in an interview with the Guardian, “In a few weeks from now the rainy season will start again and without a huge and immediate investment, cholera will again hit Yemeni children.”
3/27
Chatham House's Peter Salisbury released a report about the southern separatist movement, arguing that if the south were to break away before the end of the war, it would undermine the UN-led peace process.
Four separate congressional votes over the past three years, including last week’s resolution, point to growing dissatisfaction in Congress with Saudi Arabia, Foreign Policy reported.
Nearly 2 million children are now out of school, a UNICEF report found: “An entire generation of children in Yemen faces a bleak future because of limited or no access to education,” said Meritxell Relaño, UNICEF Representative in Yemen. “Even those who remain in school are not getting the quality education they need.”
In a meeting with the New York Times, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman characterized the Houthis' 7 missile launches towards Saudi Arabia over the weekend as a "last ditch effort" and painted a positive picture of the coalition's progress, claiming that Saudi Arabia was working toward a political solution to resolve the war against the increasingly-isolated Houthis.
In another meeting, Prince Mohammed bin Salman presented a $930 million donation to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for use towards UN humanitarian efforts in Yemen.
3/28
Analysts say that in the short term, the Saudi-led coalition is unlikely to respond aggressively to the Houthis’ missile attacks, due to increased international scrutiny of the crisis, Reuters reports.
Executive director of Mwatana Organization, Abdulrasheed al-Faqih, wrote a New York Times op-ed on US military involvement in the conflict, ending by saying, "three years of war in my country have made clear that Yemen can’t wait much longer for America to realize it has been on the wrong side of history."
3/29
After trip to Marib organized by the Saudi military, Washington Post reporter Kareem Fahim described the deep divisions and resentments he found in Yemeni society. “We have an enemy that doesn’t want any solution,” an interviewee said, referring to the Houthis.
The UN Security Council condemned the latest missile attacks by the Houthis targeting several cities in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh. The Press Statement underlined that “such attacks pose a serious national security threat to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as a wider threat to regional security.”
Suspected al-Qaeda members attacked a military checkpoint in Hadramout, killing nine soldiers who were part of a local elite military unit trained by the UAE.
The UN special envoy secretly met with Abd al-Malik Al-Houthi last night, according to the president of the Houthis’ revolutionary committee.
The UAE appears to have stopped building a runway on Yemen’s Mayyun island in the Bab al-Mandab strait, but is pushing forward with a base near Berbera in Somaliland. Construction on the runway was previously speculated to be in support of its military operations in southern Yemen.
3/30
The National Army has taken over al-Qubayta region in Lahj, and is moving towards Sirwah in western Marib.
3/31
The White House issued a statement titled, "The Efforts by Yemen's Houthis to Destabilize the Arabian Peninsula," condemning Houthi missile launches against Saudi Arabia and claiming that "these actions call into question the Houthis’ commitment to a peace process."
A huge fire destroyed humanitarian aid supplies at the Hudaydah port, mostly belonging to the World Food Programme.
4/2
Hundreds of African migrants held at a detention center in Aden without food are now faced with deportation, Al Jazeera reports.
A report by Conflict Armament Research found that roadside bombs disguised as rocks in Yemen bear similarities to others used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and by insurgents in Iraq and Bahrain, suggesting a possible Iranian influence in their manufacture.
Yemen’s national army has reportedly made progress in the north of Sa’dah province, according to Al Arabiya.
A land crossing in Haradh, Hajjah Governorate is to be opened soon, according to “military sources” in the province.
The UAE sponsored a new proposal to end the war in Yemen, according to a number of Emirati newspapers. The proposal calls for the formation of a national unity government that would include the Houthis and other “armed groups,” and is reportedly being supported by the UN’s envoy to Yemen. The Hadi government was informed about the proposal during some meetings in Riyadh, and the Houthis reportedly ’’showed initial approval to hand over their weapons to a unity government.” Unlike previous proposals, this one seems to include the possibility of renegotiating the 2014 draft constitution and the National Dialogue outcomes, which were among the Houthis’ initial demands at the start of the war.
UN FAO released a 2018-2020 Yemen Plan of Action aiming to restore the agriculture sector of the country, reducing food insecurity.
A coalition airstrike on a residential area in Hudaydah killed at least fourteen civilians and wounded nine more. Most of the victims were women and children.