Brutal Yemen war puts UK arms role in spotlight, which is why archbishop spoke out

Why was a British churchman commenting?

In short, it was because of the sheer brutality of the conflict, the humanitarian disaster that it has brought, and the role of the UK in selling arms to Saudi Arabia which is heavily involved.

However, on January 22, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt allocated an additional £2.5m to support the UN’s peace efforts in Yemen, stating: “Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Up to 20 million Yemenis lack reliable access to food and over 400,000 children under the age of five suffer severe acute malnutrition.”

Yemen is strategically situated on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, where the Red Sea leads into the Arabian Sea towards the Indian Ocean.

It is estimated that just under five million barrels of oil pass by every day.

On the far side of the gulf, across the Bab-el-Mandeb straight, just 20 miles at the narrowest point, is the Horn of Africa.

It’s about the same distance across the straight at this point as it is from Belfast to Stranraer.

Aden, of course, was formerly a British Crown colony until 1963. After factional fighting and attacks on British troops it subsequently became the capital of South Yemen.

North and South Yemen were united in 1990, with the North’s Sana’a becoming the capital. However, discontent over the union continued.

An Arab Spring movement led to then President Saleh giving up power in 2012 to his deputy, Vice-President Hadi.

However, only three years later, Mr Hadi was forced to return to his home, the south Yemen city of Aden, as a result of a Houthi-led coup centred on Sana’a brought on by the end of fuel subsidies.

Nonetheless, Mr Hadi continued to claim the presidency of Yemen and, while currently recognised by the international community as Yemen’s head of state, he reportedly now lives in exile in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia which is Yemen’s immediate northern neighbouring state.

The Shia and Sunni traditions of Islam (approximately 10% and 90% of all Muslims respectively) are deeply and passionately divided, principally, and in often violent proportions, over the succession to Muhammad, who died in the year 632.

Violence is seen to beget violence.

The Houthis are often presented as a northern predominantly Shia Muslim group, including some Sunnis, but the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), an independent UK think-tank, points out that Houthis belong to the Zaydi Muslim sect and distinguish themselves from Shia as well as from Sunni Islam.

The current conflict, which the FPC urges should not be seen in simply Shia-Sunni sectarian terms but as a more politically complex situation (where have we heard that before?), is nonetheless intense.

The Houthis, with their power centred in Sana’a and the north of the country, are understood to have at least some support, including military support, from Iran, a Shia majority nation.

However, the FPC regards Iranian involvement as “marginal” and suggests that the Houthis’ main source of military support is from former President Saleh “whose army was equipped with US weapons”.

There is irony here, because Saudi Arabia and its neighbour to the east, the United Arab Emirates, in coalition with other Sunni Muslim states in the region, and with assistance from Britain, the US and France, have backed President Hadi against the Houthis.

Complicating the tragic scene even further is the fact that al-Qaeda and ISIS are reported to have gained strongholds in the south of Yemen, attacking Aden in particular.

Estimates of the number of those killed in the four-year long Yemen conflict range up to some 60,000 people.

Against this background, Rowan Williams, in a public statement on behalf of Christian Aid, said that nearly fifty per cent of British foreign arms sales go to Saudi Arabia, which he said is conducting a campaign of “great violence” in Yemen, with many of the casualties being civilians.

The extent particularly of civilian casualties as a result of this involvement, often as a result of air strikes, is indeed deeply troubling.

Just after Christmas there was hopeful news, however. The UN reported that following talks it had convened in Stockholm in mid-December, Yemen’s warring parties had begun to implement a ceasefire in the Houthi-held port of Hodeidah, about 160 miles north of the Bab-el-Mandeb straight on the Red Sea coast.

Hodeidah is vital for the passage of humanitarian aid deeper into Yemen.

The ceasefire has been fragile but the UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, in early January reported to the UN Security Council that it was largely holding. Despite a recently reported setback, it is now envisaged that a prisoner exchange programme will proceed in the near future.

Mr Griffiths has expressed his hope that further talks will build on the Stockholm agreement to forward peace across the country.

Every person of good conscience must hope for both a better reach for humanitarian aid and further sure progress in the peace negotiations.

• Canon Ian Ellis is a former editor of The Church of Ireland Gazette