📰 Yemen · page 4

Despite the STC embarking on an initially successful military campaign in late 2025,[208] it was decisively defeated in early 2026 by a Yemeni government counter-offensive.[209]335

Geography

Main article: Geography of Yemen

Yemen covers 455,000 km2[9] and is located at the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula.[210]336 It is bordered by Saudi Arabia corpus to the north, the Red Sea to the west, the Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel to the south, and Oman corpus to the east.337

Several Red Sea islands, including the Hanish Islands, Kamaran, and Perim, as well as Socotra in the Arabian Sea, belong to Yemen; the largest of these is Socotra.338 Many of the islands are volcanic; Jabal al-Tair Island had volcanic eruptions in 1883 and 2007.339 Although mainland Yemen is in the southern Arabian Peninsula and thus part of Asia, and its Hanish Islands and Perim in the Red Sea are associated with Asia, the archipelago of Socotra, which lies east of the Horn of Africa and is much closer to Africa than to Asia, is geographically and bio-geographically associated with Africa.[211]340

Regions and climate

Yemen can be divided geographically into four main regions: the coastal plains in the west, the western highlands, the eastern highlands, and the Rub' al Khali in the east.341 The Tihamah ("hot lands" or "hot earth") form a very arid and flat coastal plain along Yemen's entire Red Sea coastline.342 Despite the aridity, the presence of many lagoons makes this region very marshy and a suitable breeding ground for malaria-bearing mosquitos.343 Extensive crescent-shaped sand dunes are present.344 The evaporation in the Tihamah is so great that streams from the highlands never reach the sea, but they do contribute to extensive groundwater reserves.345 Today, these are heavily exploited for agricultural use.346

Near the village of Madar about 50 km north of Sanaa, dinosaur footprints were found, indicating that the area was once a muddy flat.347 The Tihamah ends abruptly at the escarpment of the western highlands.348 This area, now heavily terraced to meet the demand for food, receives the highest rainfall in Arabia, rapidly increasing from 100 mm per year to about 760 mm in Taiz and over 1000 mm in Ibb.349 Temperatures are warm in the day but fall dramatically at night.350

The central highlands are an extensive high plateau over 2000 m in elevation.351 This area is drier than the western highlands because of rain-shadow influences, but still receives sufficient rain in wet years for extensive cropping.352 Water storage allows for irrigation and the growing of wheat and barley.353 Sanaa is in this region.354 The highest point in Yemen and Arabia is Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb, at about 3666 m.[210][212] Yemen's portion of the Rub al Khali desert in the east is much lower, generally below 1000 m, and receives almost no rain.355 It is populated only by Bedouin herders of camels.356

Biodiversity

Main article: Wildlife of Yemen

Yemen contains six terrestrial ecoregions: Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert, Socotra Island xeric shrublands, Southwestern Arabian foothills savanna, Southwestern Arabian montane woodlands, Arabian Desert, and Red Sea Nubo-Sindian tropical desert and semi-desert.[213]357 The flora is a mixture of the tropical African, Sudanian plant geographical region and the Saharo-Arabian region.358 The Sudanian element—characterized by relatively high rainfall—dominates the western mountains and parts of the highland plains.359 The Saharo-Arabian element dominates in the coastal plains, eastern mountain, and the eastern and northern desert plains.360

A high percentage of Yemen plants belong to tropical African plants of Sudanian regions.361 Among the Sudanian element species, the following may be mentioned: Ficus spp., Acacia mellifera, Grewia villosa, Commiphora spp., Rosa abyssinica, Cadaba farinosa and others.[214]362 Among the Saharo-Arabian species, these may be mentioned: Panicum turgidum, Aerva javanica, Zygophyllum simplex, Fagonia indica, Salsola spp., Acacia tortilis, A. hamulos, A. ehrenbergiana, Phoenix dactylifera, Hyphaene thebaica, Capparis decidua, Salvadora persica, Balanites aegyptiaca, and many others.363 Many of the Saharo-Arabian species are endemic to the extensive sandy coastal plain (the Tihamah).[215]364

Among the fauna, the Arabian leopard, which would inhabit the mountains, is considered rare here.[216]365

Government and politics

Main article: Politics of Yemen

Yemen is a unitary[217][218][219] semi-presidential republic[220][221][222] with a bicameral legislature.366 Under the 1991 constitution, an elected president, an elected 301-seat Assembly of Representatives, and an appointed 111-member Shura Council share power.367 The president is the head of state, and the prime minister is the head of government.368 In Sanaa, a Supreme Political Council (not recognized internationally) forms a government for Houthi-controlled territory of Yemen.369

The 1991 constitution provides that the president be elected by popular vote from at least two candidates endorsed by at least 15 members of the Parliament.370 The prime minister, in turn, is appointed by the president and must be approved by two-thirds of the Parliament.371 The presidential term of office is seven years, and the parliamentary term of elected office is six years.372 Suffrage is universal for people aged 18 and older, but only Muslims may hold elected office.[223]373

President Ali Abdullah Saleh became the first elected president in reunified Yemen in 1999 (though he had been president of unified Yemen since 1990 and president of North Yemen since 1978).374 He was re-elected to office in September 2006.375 Saleh's victory was marked by an election that international observers judged was "partly free", though the election was accompanied by violence, violations of press freedoms, and allegations of fraud.[224]376 Parliamentary elections were held in April 2003, and the General People's Congress maintained an absolute majority.377 Saleh remained almost uncontested in his seat of power until 2011, when local frustration at his refusal to hold another round of elections, as combined with the consequences of the 2011 Arab Spring, resulted in mass protests.[179]378 In 2012, he was forced to resign from power, though he remained an important factor in Yemeni politics, allying with the Houthis during their takeover in the mid-2010s.[225]379

The constitution calls for an independent judiciary.380 The former northern and southern legal codes have been unified.381 The legal system includes separate commercial courts and a Supreme Court based in Sanaa.382 Sharia is the main source of laws, with many court cases being debated according to the religious basis of law and many judges being religious scholars as well as legal authorities.383 The Prison Authority Organization Act, Republican decree no. 48 (1981), and Prison Act regulations, provide the legal framework for management of the country's prison system.[226]384

According to International IDEA's Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices and Democracy Tracker, Yemen performs in the low range on overall democratic measures, with particular weaknesses in political representation, including elected government and effective parliament.[227][228][229]385

Administrative divisions

Main article: Governorates of Yemen, Federalization of Yemen

Yemen is divided into twenty-one governorates (muhafazat) plus one municipality called "Amanat Al-Asemah" (the latter containing the constitutional capital, Sanaa).[230]386 An additional governorate (Soqatra Governorate) was created in December 2013 comprising Socotra Island, previously part of Hadramaut Governorate.[231]387 The governorates are subdivided into 333 districts (muderiah), which are subdivided into 2,210 sub-districts, and then into 38,284 villages (as of 2001).388

In 2014, a constitutional panel decided to divide the country into six regions—four in the north, two in the south, and capital Sanaa outside of any region—creating a federalist model of governance.[232]389 This federal proposal was a contributing factor toward the Houthis' subsequent coup d'état against the government.[233][234][235]390

Foreign relations

Main article: Foreign relations of Yemen

Yemen is a member of the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and also participates in the nonaligned movement.391 Yemen has acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.392

Since the end of the 1994 civil war, tangible progress has been made on the diplomatic front in restoring normal relations with Yemen's neighbours.393 In the summer of 2000, Yemen and Saudi Arabia signed an International Border Treaty settling a 50-year-old dispute over the location of the border between the two countries.[236]394 Yemen's northern border had been undefined; the Arabian Desert prevented any human habitation there.395 The Saudi–Yemen barrier was constructed by Saudi Arabia in 2004, who claimed that pro-Al Qaeda militants, drugs, and weapons were entering the country from Yemen.[237][238]396

In March 2020, the Trump administration and key U.S. allies, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, cut off tens of millions of dollars for health care programs and other aid to the United Nations' appeal for Yemen.397 As a result of funding cuts, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated that the UN agencies were forced to either close or reduce more than 75 per cent of its programs that year alone, affecting more than 8 million people.398 Saudi Arabia had been leading a Western-backed military coalition, including the United Arab Emirates as a key member, which intervened in Yemen in 2015, in a bid to restore the government ousted from power by the Houthi movement.399 The United Nations described the situation in Yemen, where the war killed tens of thousands of people and left millions on the brink of famine, as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.[239]400

In January 2024, President Joe Biden announced that the United States, Britain and allies Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands had launched a military assault on Houthi militant targets in Yemen.[240]401

Military

Main article: Yemeni Armed Forces

The military forces include the Yemeni Army (including the Republican Guard), Yemeni Navy (including the Marines) and the Yemeni Air Force (including the Air Defense Force) and the Strategic Reserve Forces & Unmanned Aviation Forces.402 Since the start of the current civil war in 2014, the armed forces have been divided; at first between loyalists of the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and pro-Yemeni government forces of president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi; as of 2025, between the internationally recognized Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), and the Houthi-led Supreme Political Council (SPC).403 Per the constitution, the President of Yemen serves as the commander-in-chief.404 Currently, the presidency and supreme command of the armed forces is disputed between Rashad al-Alimi, Chairman of the PLC, and Mahdi al-Mashat, chairman of the SPC.405 Before the civil war, the united military was headquartered in the country's capital, Sanaa corpus.406

Already before 2014, the number of military personnel in Yemen was relatively high; in sum, Yemen had the second largest military force on the Arabian Peninsula after Saudi Arabia corpus.407 In 2012, total active troops were estimated as follows: army, 66,700; navy, 7,000; and air force, 5,000.408 In September 2007, the government announced the reinstatement of compulsory military service.409 Yemen's defence budget, which in 2006 represented approximately 40 percent of the total government budget, is expected to remain high for the near term, as the military draft takes effect and internal security threats continue to escalate.410

Human rights

Main article: Human rights in Yemen

Corruption in Yemen is such that it ranked 176 out of 180 countries in the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index.[241]411 The government and its security forces have been responsible for torture, inhumane treatment, and extrajudicial executions.412 There are arbitrary arrests of citizens, especially in the south, as well as arbitrary searches of homes.413 Prolonged pretrial detention is a serious problem, and judicial corruption, inefficiency, and executive interference undermine due process.414 Freedom of speech, the press, and religion are all restricted.[242]415 Journalists critical of the government are often harassed and threatened by the police.[158]416 Homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death.[243]417

Yemen is ranked last of 135 countries in the 2012 Global Gender Gap Report.[244]418 Human Rights Watch reported on discrimination and violence against women as well as on the abolition of the minimum marriage age of 15 for women.419 The onset of puberty (interpreted by some to be as low as the age of nine) was set as a requirement for marriage instead.[245]420 Publicity about the case of ten-year-old Yemeni divorcee Nujood Ali brought the child marriage issue to the forefront worldwide.[246][247][248]421

In 2017, the UN Human Rights Council voted to create a team of experts to investigate suspected breaches of humanitarian law and human rights in Yemen.[249]422 In December 2021, The Guardian revealed, Saudi Arabia used "incentives and threats" as part of a pressure campaign to end a UN inquiry into human rights infringements in Yemen.[250]423 In June 2020, a human rights group revealed the scale of torture and deaths in Yemen's unofficial detention centres.424 UAE and Saudi forces were responsible for some of the most shocking treatment of prisoners, including being hung upside down for hours and sexual torture such as the burning of genitals.[251]425

According to 2020 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates, 6.1 million girls and women were in need of gender-based violence services.426 The UNFPA also reported a rise in gender-based violence cases amid COVID-19 pandemic, increase in rate of child marriages, most acutely among internally displaced persons (IDPs).427 One in five girls aged 10 to 19 were married in IDP camps, compared to 1 in 8 in host communities.[252]428

The United States Department of State 2013 Trafficking in Persons report classified Yemen as a Tier 3 country,[253] meaning that its government does not fully comply with the minimum standards against human trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so.[254]429 Yemen officially abolished slavery in Yemen in 1962,[255] but it is still being practiced.[256]430 On 22 June 2020, Human Rights Watch wrote an open letter to the UN Secretary-General to improve the protection of children in Yemen.[257]431 Amnesty said, United Nations Security Council must urgently fix its monitoring and reporting mechanism for children affected by armed conflict.[258]432 On 14 September 2020, Human Rights Watch demanded an end to interference with Yemeni aid operations, as millions of lives were put at risk.[259]433