The sustainability of a peace agreement in Yemen depends on two critical economic issues. First, in a conflict that is largely over access to resources, the issues of distribution, control, and sharing of those resources can make or break peace.

There is a confluence of humanitarian and economic woes bearing down on Yemen that evoke the image of tidal waves cresting upon tidal waves, and average Yemenis have been left terrifyingly exposed. The United Nations estimates that 16 million Yemenis may ultimately be infected with the COVID-19 virus

In separately defined containment measures, authorities in Sana’a and Aden closed sea, land and air ports as a precaution prior to the April 10 official reporting of Yemen’s first confirmed case of COVID-19. Since then, they have — separately — suspended school and university classes, set up quarantines and imposed social distancing measures.

For the past few years, women have been abducted in northern Yemen, disappeared, tortured, raped, forced into false confessions of prostitution, and left traumatized and stigmatized, their punishment for publicly contradicting Houthi authorities

Yemen announced its first official cases and confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in April, with the coronavirus cases emerging in Hadramawt, Aden and Taiz. The pandemic’s spread to Yemen heightened fears of how devastating the weeks ahead will be, given the country’s failing health system, people's weakened immunity and warring parties' inability to pause fighting and respond together to the threat.