America’s Role in Creating the Refugee Crisis

Yemen

Yemen has been called “the world’s next great refugee crisis.”  

Unfortunately, the U.S. had a hand in this crisis when it supported dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh and his government.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acknowledged that a government without Saleh, who had ruled for three-and-a-half decades, had never been planned for by Washington.  

At the height of the Arab Spring in 2011, a nonviolent pro-democracy movement rose up.  U.S. policy allowed the CIA to conduct individual drone strikes without verifying the identity of the targets, which resulted in some of the pro-democracy party members being mistaken for Al Qaeda operatives and killed.  It’s been theorized that Saleh exploited the CIA’s policies to take out his own political opponents. 

Long story short, the U.S.-trained Yemeni troops, who had been trained to fight Al Qaeda, were instead used to halt a pro-democracy movement in its tracks and protect Saleh’s oppressive dictatorship regime.  A U.S.-Saudi mandate and threats of sanctions from the United Nations eventually forced Saleh to resign, and hand off power to his vice president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, amidst large-scale pro-democracy protests that resulted in government security forces killing protesters and wounding hundreds more.

An expert on counter-radicalization, Francisco Martin-Royal, wrote, “The lack of U.S. support means that these young men and women, who effectively ousted Saleh and continue to call for democratic institutions, have broadly failed to have a voice in the formation of Yemen’s new government or have their legitimate concerns be taken seriously.”

Representative Ted Lieu wrote that Washington was engaged in “willful blindness” as evidence emerged of Saudi-led strikes on civilian targets like schools, markets, hospitals, weddings and funerals.  

Eventually, Houthi rebels loyal to Saleh took over Yemen’s capital in 2015.  Saudi Arabia, which supported their installation of Hadi — who by this time was exiled — began their bombing campaign at the end of March 2015.  The U.S. has assisted Saudi Arabia’s efforts, despite warnings to the Pentagon from U.S. House Representative Ted Lieu (D) that U.S. servicemen may be charged with “aiding and abetting” war crimes during Saudi-led coalition strikes that are killing civilians.  Lieu wrote that Washington was engaged in “willful blindness” as evidence emerged of Saudi-led strikes on civilian targets like schools, markets, hospitals, weddings and funerals.  

As the war in Yemen rages on, it’s estimated that a large portion of Yemen’s pre-war population of 24 million will be displaced.  At the end of 2014, the UN estimated that about 600,000 people were displaced; about half of them refugees from Somalia who were now refugees for the second time.  By August 2015, the number of displaced peoples jumped five times what it was in December 2014, to 1.5 million people — and that’s counting Yemenis alone.  

International aid organization Oxfam issued a warning that Yemen could very well be out of food by April of this year. 

Yemen, a dry, hilly and water-poor country, was already facing food insecurity prior to the war; about nine-tenths of the food in Yemen was imported.  With such a heavy reliance on imported food, any of kind of issue, even a seemingly minute problem, could put the country on the brink of starvation.  War has obviously interfered with food delivery and the country is facing a starvation crisis.  Half of Yemenis don’t even have access to clean water.

In December 2016, the conflict had taken over 11,000 lives and displaced more than 3 million people.  International aid organization Oxfam issued a warning that Yemen could very well be out of food by April of this year.  April 2017 also marks two years of war.  In two years of war, the rates of child malnutrition have tripled, meaning it’s risen over 200% within that time period.  Overall, half of the population is suffering from food insecurity and malnutrition, and 82% of the population needs humanitarian assistance.