Research Of How War Has Caused The Famine In Yemen

The ongoing crisis in Yemen has been described by the United Nations as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. For decades, Yemeni citizens have struggled in the face of immense political unrest, war, violence, terrorism, hunger and economic instability. Yemen has been in the midst of a civil war since 2015, when the Houthi rebels, supported by Iran, took control of most of the country, including the capital city, Sanaa, and forced the sitting government into exile. A Saudi-backed coalition formed in retaliation, and quickly launched a series of attacks against the Houthis. Since then, civil war has 'crippled' the country in many ways, causing the deaths of thousands, and the internal displacement of millions of innocent men, women and children. In this essay, I will investigate and explain the causes of the famine have plagued Yemeni citizens since 2016, through the lens of Amartya Sen's entitlement theory. I will argue that, and demonstrate the ways in which, war and violence have led to a widespread entitlements collapse, which has caused starvation and malnutrition to spread by the millions. I will also examine the influence of health and sanitation failures in exacerbating the effects of the crisis. This will combine elements from Alex de Waal's health crisis theory of famine, Sen's entitlement theory, and theories of war and violence, with empirical knowledge and data, in order to construct a robust image of the causes and implications of the famine in Yemen.

'Famine' refers to a situation of extreme food scarcity, which, when activated, can to mass hunger, death and desolation. Famine has posed a threat to humanitarianism all over the world for centuries, and continues to affect societies, even in the modern world. Traditionally, famines have been viewed as merely a decline in the physical amount/availability of food within an economy. Amartya Sen (1991) notes that supply-side explanatons (for example, the destruction of crops by natural disasters or by terrorist activity) can often serve as a partial explanation for the emergence of famine. However, Sen argues that famines can occur, and often do occur, even in countries with high levels of food availability. Hence, Sen's entitlements approach to famine attempts to shift the focus from mere availability, to accessibility.

Sen defines entitlements as 'the set of commodity bundles over which a family can establish operative control'. These can take four general forms: production entitlements (people are entitled to consume whatever they have produced for themselves), ownership entitlements, exchange entitlements (people can exchange ownership rights for money or other commodities with willing buyers), and transfer entitlements, such as gifts, loans from family or food aid. According to Sen, war and violence can disrupt the entitlements of vulnerable groups even without destroying crops or disrupting production'. Thus, a famine can be defined as 'the simultaneous failure of the entitlements of a large number of people in the same area or community', and occurs when there is a failure across various means of acquiring food within an economy.

Agencies such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented the use of airstrikes, missiles and even cluster bombs by members of the coalition. However, Human Rights Watch (2016) described the airstrikes as 'unlawfully indiscriminate', with innocent civilians accounting for the majority of casualties during the conflict. According to NBC, 'targets have included homes, medical facilities, schools, farms and weddings', with UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien condemning the attacks, describing them as 'a violation of international humanitarian law' (BBC, 2015). The United Nations estimates that around 17,700 civilians have been killed as a result of the conflict since 2015, with as many as 3.3 million people remaining internally displaced. It is unorthodox for so many civilian lives to be lost in a conflict like this, and some observers have suggested that civilians are being deliberately targeted. This would be consistent with the 'punishment' war strategy, in which civilians are targeted in order to force those in control to panic, and hopefully yield to the demands of the attackers

There have been many entitlement failures as a direct result of this situation. High levels of migration/internal displacement means that workers have been unable to keep to their jobs, which means that production entitlements have been severely compromised. Innumerable ownership entitlements have been lost due to the destruction of property, as well as the loss of human lives (labour) that has been lost in addition. The ability of people to call in rights to transfers also diminshes as people die. Members of groups such as 'widows, orphans, the disabled and the elderly' (BBC, 2017), are largely dependent on transfer entitlements for sustenance. The ongoing conflict has meant that monthly allowances have gone unpaid, with more than one million civil servants 'no longer receiving regular salaries'. In line with Sen's entitlements model, it is clear that the causes of famine go well beyond simply supply-side explanations (i.e. food availability decline). Sen's theory does not attempt to describe the problem without offering any solutions. Sen discusses some of the various 'coping strategies' that can be utilised in order to avoid or mitigate the effects of famine. Coping strategies exist on both the individual/household level, and on the national-wide/government scale.

Sen discusses the various ways in which countries can utilise 'coping strategies' that may assist in avoiding or mitigating the effects of famine. Coping strategies can operate on the individual/household level, as well as on the government/national scale. Famine avoidance, for example, may involve the accumulation of food entitlements/reserves (e.g. in warehouses) or attempts to diversify the economy in anticipation of potential food scarcity. Alternatively, famine mitigation refers to coping strategies that can be implemented once a famine has already occurred, such as borrowing and lending, calling in rights to transfers (e.g. international aid) or the sale of personal items/assets in order to raise money for food.

Although the accumulation of food stores in warehouses is often considered an effective tool for famine avoidance and mitigation, it has not be a feasible solution for Yemen in recent years. Intense fighting around major seaports have been occupied by the Houthi rebels, including the port at Hodeida, formerly the country's main port of entry for most of the country's food. Years earlier, in 2015, this same port, among others, experienced a series of bombings by members of the Saudi-led coalition, with the United Nations accusing the militia of deliberately targeting ports and severely threatening the food security of the economy (BBC, 2015). The United Nations reports that food supplies that might have fed millions have been left to rot in storage facilities, in areas that have been left totally inaccessible by the ongoing violence.

Before the war broke out, Yemen had to rely on imports for 90 percent of its food supplies, due to the unfavorable environmental conditions and arid land. This means that building up stocks in advance was not a strong option for Yemen in the first place. Now, with many of their ports blocked off by the rebels and the coalition, food imports have had almost no way to make it to the homes of the people who so desperately need them. In addition to this, the Saudi-led coalition has blocked access to and from the Sanaa international airport, blocking potentially life-saving food and medical supplies from arriving into the country (BBC, 2017).

In November 2017, Saudi Arabia implemented a 'near-complete blockade' of its land, air and sea borders with Yemen, in order to prevent their Houthi opposition from gaining access to weapons and ammunitions from their supporters, such as Iran. As a result, food supplies, medicines and other necessary imports such as fuel were inadvertently embargoed, and civilians have suffered as a result, with more than 20 million citizens (around four fifths of the population) now food insecure. As Sen notes, famines usually affect only a small proportion of a country's population, namely those whose 'power to command food' has depleted the most. Yet, in Yemen, the majority of people across multiple cities have been affected. This attests to the sheer gravity of the crisis in Yemen, which has caused a 'collapse of essential services and exhausting of coping mechanisms' (FAO, 2019).

In addition to this, the economy has experienced unfavorably high rates of inflation, whilst the national currency (the riyal) has greatly depreciated in recent years. This means that the purchasing power of the average household has been depleted. In 2016, the Food Security Cluster reported that the average prices of sugar, rice and barley had increased across the country by 46.2%, 48.4% and 69.2% respectively. In 2018, Save The Children reported that food prices had nearly doubled due to the scarcity caused by the shipment blockades. The years-long political instability has also meant that potential state-led responses and mitigation strategies have failed to materialise. It is clear that internal coping strategies have not been successful, leaving Yemeni citizens to depend totally on foreign aid for survival.

However, foreign aid has proven itself to be a failed solution. In 2017, the United Nations launched an international appeal for an immense $2.1 billion to provide 'life-saving assistance' to millions of Yemeni citizens. However, the international response has not been nearly as enthusiastic as initially hoped for. According to Jamie McGoldrick (UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, the crisis in Yemen has been largely ignored by the international community, due to the disproportionate media coverage of the crises in other countries such as Syria and Iraq (BBC, 2017). In addition to this, the World Health Organisation has accused the Houthi rebels of deliberately 'intercepting and halting aid drops', further diminishing the efficacy of international aid. According to TIME magazine (2016), before the conflict began, around 44 percent of Yemen's population of 25 million people were undernourished, with 5 million people already dependent on food aid. With conditions so grave and dismal even before the civil war had begun, it is clear coping strategies such as humanitarian aid have only been weakened in the wake of the ongoing conflict. The United Nations (2017) similar concluded that 'deliberate war tactics are accelerating the collapse of key institutions and the economy, thereby exacerbating pre-existing vulnerabilities'.

Alex de Waal criticized Sen for taking an overly economistic approach to famine in his entitlements theory, and for overlooking the importance of violence/war, as well as health crises/disease in his analysis of famine and famine mortality (Quentin, 2018c). Sen did discuss the role of violence in famine in his later works, such as his 1991 paper 'Wars and Famines: On Divisions and Incentives'. De Waal notes that wars do not always lead to famine, but often do when warfare directly impacts food security by interrupting production, exchange and consumption activities. This is usually an unfortunate byproduct of large-scale migration/internal displacement, which itself often follows periods of violence and conflict. This is consistent with the civil war in Yemen. Moreover, terrorist groups Al-Qaeda and ISIS have taken credit for numerous bombings in recent years, exacerbating the chaos and disruption, and leading to more deaths and entitlement collapses.

De Waal also argue that in a typical famine, most deaths tend to be caused by illnesses and diseases (e.g. malaria), as opposed to people physically directly starving to death due to lack of food. This may be because malnourishment leads to an increased susceptibility to certain diseases, although this may depend on conditions such as location and climate. It may also be explained by increased exposure to diseases leading to excess mortality. Many people forced to leave their homes during times of conflict are often forced into refugee camps or internally displaced people camps where sanitation tends to be poor and diseases can quickly spread.

De Waal's health crisis theory can be divided into a violence-model and a peace-time model. In his violence model, war and terrorism pose a threat to entitlements, which leads to a social collapse. Since coping strategies are ineffective, destitution leads to starvation, whilst the social collapse and entitlement failure that follows the violence, leads to the spread of fatal diseases. De Waal's violence model does not apply to all famines universally, and possess some notable empirical issues. For example, it is not always true that violence leads to a 'social collapse', and De Waal does not distinguish between low levels of violence and extreme amounts of violence. Moreover, it is not exactly clear what constitutes a social collapse, and the critical assertions lack nuance in a host of other ways. Despite this, De Waal's model is certainly an improvement from Sen's entitlement theory, and the crisis in Yemen fits very well with the critical assumptions in De Waal's theory. As Sen acknowledges in his 1991 essay, the role of health and public health measure in famine have often been 'underemphasized'.

The recent outbreak of cholera in Yemen has been described as 'the worst in history' (Guardian, 2018). In October 2016, 1,410 cases of cholera had been detected. Yet, by the end of 2018 more than 1.2 million people were believed to have been infected with the disease. Tamer Kirolos, Save The Children's country director for Yemen, notes that 'cholera only rears its head when there’s a complete and total breakdown in sanitation' (Guardian, 2017). Cholera is a waterborne disease, often being spread through unclean and untreated drinking water. Although it can usually be prevent by boiling water before drinking, the fuel scarcity has made it impossible for many Yemenis to use electrical appliances such as boilers and cookers. The United Nations reported in February 2019 that '17.8 million people lack access to safe water and sanitation', whereas a total of 19.7 million people 'lack access to adequate healthcare'. Malnutrition is also believed to significantly weaken immune systems, which means that the food crisis is both a direct and indirect exacerbating factor in the spread of spread of illnesses.

With 3.3 million people remaining internally displaced, many people have been forced into poor and unsanitary IDP sites where people are forced to stay in close proximity with one another. The state of healthcare generally has also been in decline. In January of 2017, BBC reported that 'half of the country's medical facilities are no longer functioning' as many were forced to shut down due to underfunding, as well as the fuel shortages caused by the Saudi-sanctioned trade blockade/embargo. The World Health organisation also accused coalition forces of deliberately targeting and destroying hospitals (The Independent, 2018), which means that medical facilities have either been destroyed, forced to shut down, or are operating without the adequate resources to treat the millions of people in need. In any event, many citizens have been unable to travel the long distances required to receive medical attention.

In conclusion, I maintain that the war and violence in Yemen has led to grave economic instability, and a widespread collapse in entitlements that has threatened citizens' ability to acquire food supplies. In addition to this, the war has forced many people to flee their homes, leading to widespread internal displacement. This has subsequently led to a health crisis and outbreak of cholera that has affected more than a million citizens, and increased the death, suffering and destitution across the nation. According to Frank McManus, the International Rescue Committee's country director for Yemen, 'neither side is any closer to achieving their strategic objectives' despite almost four years of war. So far, peace talks have been unsuccessful and ceasefires have been short-lived, and with the crisis being largely overlooked by the international community, the future of Yemen, for now, is looking very bleak.

Bibliography

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