The bombing of two boats carrying >also Indians off Yemen’s coast by Saudi warplanes this week shows that Riyadh is indiscriminately using air power to pound Yemen in the name of fighting Houthi rebels. It’s still not clear why the Saudis targeted the boats, which were moving across the Red Sea from the Somalian port of Berbera to Mokha in Yemen. The bodies of six of the >20 Indians who were on board have been found; one is yet to be accounted for. Who will answer for this tragedy? But such questions are of little concern for Saudi Arabia, whose months-long air campaign in Yemen has triggered a humanitarian crisis. Over 4,500 people have been killed and 23,000 wounded since its aircraft started hitting Yemen in late-March. The destruction of infrastructure and the import restrictions imposed by a Saudi-led coalition have led to 21 million out of the population of 26.7 million being deprived of essential commodities and basic services. They now need humanitarian assistance. The Saudi version is that it intervened to defend Yemen’s internationally recognised regime of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi against Houthi rebels. But the ground reality is different.
The Houthis are Shias, who make up between 30 and 45 per cent of Yemen’s population, and are reportedly close to Iran. They were instrumental in the 2011 public protests in Yemen that led to the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. But the Saudi-managed post-Saleh transition kept Houthis out of political power, leading them to break peace with Sana’a and resume their armed rebellion. When President Hadi failed to consolidate power, the Houthis marched towards the capital, eventually forcing him to flee the country. What made this crisis worse were its sectarian underpinnings. Saudi Arabia’s main concern is over Iran gaining a foothold in its backyard through the Houthis. It must have calculated that a military intervention in Yemen and a possible defeat of the Houthis would weaken Iran and strengthen its regional standing. But the operation has been largely counter-productive, as in the case of several other external interventions in West Asia. Seven months after Riyadh started bombing Yemen, the rebels are still in Sana’a. Meanwhile, the chaos and human tragedy caused by the war are helping terror groups such as al-Qaeda. It’s unfortunate that the people of Yemen are being forced to bear the brunt of the Saudi-Iran rivalry. The international community cannot look away. It has to put pressure on Riyadh to end the bombing, and try to facilitate talks between the rival camps in Yemen. It won’t be easy to bring both the pro-Hadi factions and Houthis to the table. But failing to do so could further devastate Yemen. The human costs of such a development will be catastrophic.
