Yemen’s Fragile Truce Needs More than Talks to Survive
As a sign of good faith, Yemen’s Houthi rebels must clear the way for badly needed humanitarian aid.
Real peace talks should provide real relief for Yemenis.
Photographer: -/AFP via Getty Images
Among those of the glass-half-full persuasion, the nine-month pause in hostilities in Yemen’s civil war is reason for hope. The Houthi rebels have restarted back-channel talks with Saudi Arabia, fueling optimism about an extension of the longest truce in an eight-year conflict that has devastated the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country and endangered some of the world’s most important trade routes.
The war has claimed nearly 400,000 lives, more than half of them from hunger and disease. It has spilled over Yemen’s borders, with Houthi missile and rocket strikes against critical oil infrastructure and other civilian targets in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It has also put the Red Sea on the verge of an environmental disaster: The rebels have blocked access to a decrepit oil supertanker, laden with 1.1 million barrels of crude, which has been rusting in anchorage off the port of Ras Isa.