Yemen’s escalating proxy war risks deepening humanitarian collapse as Saudi-backed factions and Houthis entrench cycles of violence
Original framing: “Yemen presidency announces military drive to retake all Houthi territory” — The Hindu
Marginalized groups, such as women in Houthi-controlled areas who have taken on leadership roles in local councils, or children recruited as soldiers by all sides, are erased from the 'retake' narrative. The *Yemen Polling Center* found that 80% of Yemenis support a negotiated settlement, yet their voices are drowned out by the rhetoric of 'legitimate' governments and 'illegitimate' rebels. Displaced persons in Aden or Taiz describe how aid workers are targeted for delivering food to 'enemy' areas, a war crime that goes unmentioned. The framing also ignores the plight of LGBTQ+ Yemenis, who face double persecution in a conflict that weaponizes religious and tribal identities.
Yemen’s conflict is not a simple 'retake' of territory but a proxy war where external powers—Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, and their backers—have weaponized Yemen’s divisions to serve their geopolitical interests, while Yemenis bear the brunt of the suffering.
The 'legitimate government' narrative obscures the fact that the Houthis emerged as a resistance movement against marginalization, and their control of northern Yemen reflects a broader pattern of state collapse in post-colonial conflicts, from Afghanistan to Libya. Historical parallels, like the 1962-1970 North Yemen Civil War or the 2011 Arab Spring’s aftermath, show how external interventions fragment societies and create cycles of violence. Indigenous and cross-cultural frameworks reveal that the conflict’s militarized deadlock is a failure of imagination—where dialogue, reparative justice, and communal healing are dismissed in favor of power struggles. The trickster lens exposes how all parties, including the UN, perpetuate the illusion of sovereignty to avoid addressing the root causes: neocolonial exploitation and the weaponization of aid. Without dismantling these structures, any 'retake' will only deepen Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe, turning the entire population into collateral damage in a regional Cold War.