Summary: Through October Yemen’s domestic currency, the rial (YR), lost almost 10 percent of its value relative to the United States dollar (USD) in market trading, dropping from YR 375 to the USD to YR 412. This drop was roughly equivalent to the loss in value over the previous six months and the second time in 2017 that the rial…

The second Yemen Exchange conference, co-hosted by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies and the Mideast Wire, took place October 11 - 15 in Beirut, Lebanon.

The ongoing war in Yemen has spurred the world’s largest food security emergency and the largest cholera epidemic ever recorded. Millions have been sent into abject poverty, the nation’s economy has been destroyed, and basic public services have evaporated. At least 50,000 civilians have been killed or wounded during the conflict, with the belligerent parties committing a litany of war…

In September, more than two dozen heads of state highlighted the plight of Yemenis and the need to end the conflict in speeches before the United Nations General Assembly. At the 36th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, a resolution was adopted to establish an international group of experts to investigate human rights abuses in Yemen since the beginning of the war. This comes after more than two years of lobbying by UN officials, UN member states…

In August, a confidential draft of the United Nation’s “Children and Armed Conflict” report recommended that the Saudi-led military coalition intervening in the Yemen war be named to the so-called “child killer” list. This annual UN list names government forces, terrorist organizations and armed groups that perpetrate wanton acts of violence against children in conflicts around the world. Through the latter half of August, the Saudi-led coalition staged various UN-affiliated events at which it emphasized the breadth and depth of…

The disparity between the official exchange rate and the market exchange rate of the Yemeni rial that developed during the current conflict led to large-scale profiteering through currency arbitrage. In particular, Yemeni banks exchanging foreign funds for international humanitarian organizations reaped significant profits at the expense of the intended aid recipients in Yemen.

In July, Yemen’s cholera epidemic became the largest ever recorded in one country in a single year, with the World Health Organization recording 430,000 suspected incidents and almost 2,000 associated deaths with the disease by month’s end. This comes following the UN declaring Yemen the world’s largest food security emergency earlier this year.

ince the administration of United States President George W. Bush, Washington has provided military assistance to the Yemeni government under the stated goal of bolstering the Yemeni Armed Forces’ capacity to combat Yemen’s local branch of al-Qaeda. This assistance was fairly consistently provided up until the outbreak of the most recent conflict in 2015, irrespective of the domestic upheaval taking place in Yemen.

In June, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted a Presidential Statement regarding the Yemeni crisis – the first council outcome on Yemen in almost 14 months. A UNSC Presidential Statement, while important as a statement of council policy, is considered less weighty than a UNSC resolution and lacks the mandatory enforcement power of a Chapter 7 resolution.