This four part series summarises the main changes in the Yemen crisis during 2019 and suggests what may happen in 2020. Part 1 deals with the Stockholm Agreement, primarily focused on the Huthi-controlled area. Part 2 deals with the crisis which arose within the anti-Huthi coalition between President Hadi’s internationally recognised government and the separatist Southern Transitional Council. Part 3 addresses people’s living conditions, the humanitarian crisis and Part 4 deals with the looming environmental disaster and other environmental issues.
As the new year starts, and the fifth year of internationalised war in Yemen nears its end, what are the prospects for Yemenis in 2020? Are they likely to see any real improvements in their living conditions? An end to the war? An end to being talked about as ‘the world’s worst humanitarian crisis’? An end to being described as ‘a proxy war’? The beginning of an era of peace and reconstruction? Millions of Yemenis must hope that this year will bring a positive answer to these and plenty other questions. Most of them are also probably more realistically aware of the great gap between hope and expectation. While their expectations are certainly far more modest, they must at least hope that there will be some improvement to the situation. So what happened in 2019? Did any of the Yemeni or coalition leaders do anything to reach a solution or peace for the Yemeni people? Did any of them give any consideration to the suffering of the population?
On 16 January 2020, at the monthly UN Security Council Briefing on Yemen the Special Envoy, Martin Griffiths, referring to the Stockholm Agreement made another bland statement of hope and claims of improvements on the ground, which by their very blandness, implicitly recognised both actual lack of progress and the marginalisation of the UN in all major sectors of the conflict.
