UN Envoy Warns Yemen Nearest to War Since 2022 Truce
Hans Grundberg briefed the Security Council on Thursday, warning that the risk of full-scale war in Yemen is the highest since the 2022 truce, as the aid appeal remains barely 20 percent funded.
Bab el Mandeb, the strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea along Yemen’s coast, was the scene of another deadly incident this week: a strike on a ship passing through the corridor killed six people. Two days later, on Thursday, August 13, the UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, briefed the Security Council by video link and said the risk of sliding back into full-scale conflict is the highest it has been since the 2022 truce. The same corridor carries the shortest sea route between Asian factories and European ports, so every week the Red Sea stays disrupted, the cost of goods that eventually reach Serbian store shelves climbs too.
What Is Happening on the Front Lines
Grundberg described to the Council a surge in military activity along front lines that had been frozen for years, with both military and civilian casualties. Fighting has broken out in Marib, Hadramaut, Mokha and Taiz. The internationally recognized government’s forces said they repelled a Houthi attack on Taiz, and a day earlier, on Wednesday, government artillery and drones struck Houthi positions across several governorates. We reported earlier this month on the attack on the port of Mokha, where eighteen people were killed in two waves in a single day.
Grundberg told Council members: “Four years of peace can be lost in a few weeks of escalation.” He did not ask the Council for statements of support, but for every member with influence over either side to use it, and he called on the warring parties to pursue urgent de-escalation and work toward a durable ceasefire.
Jizan Refinery and the Shipping Blockade
The Houthis claimed responsibility on Thursday for a drone attack on a Saudi oil refinery in the Jizan province, saying it was a response to violations of their airspace. The strike is the latest in an exchange that has continued since July 20, when the Houthis declared a blockade on Red Sea shipping.
In July, a strike damaged the runway at Sanaa’s airport and prevented an Iranian plane carrying Houthi delegates from landing. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the strike, while Yemen’s government maintained that the Iranian plane itself had been the target. Grundberg also warned that further attacks on ships in the Red Sea could pull Yemen into the wider regional conflict already under way.
Why Is the Humanitarian Picture Deteriorating So Fast?
The UN’s humanitarian affairs chief, Tom Fletcher, told the Council that more than half of Yemen’s population lacks reliable access to enough food. Six million people are in the emergency phase of food insecurity, the highest such figure anywhere in the world.
Money for the response has not materialized. The humanitarian appeal for Yemen is barely 20 percent funded, and Fletcher laid out the consequences as a chain reaction now unfolding on its own:
- food rations are being cut
- clinics are closing
- protection services are shutting down
Women are paying the highest price: three Yemeni women die every day from pregnancy complications that are preventable.
A Divided Council
The Security Council debate exposed the usual split. Britain placed the blame for the deterioration on reckless Houthi actions and their attacks on international shipping. The United States demanded an end to all attacks disrupting freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. Russia, meanwhile, called the bombing of the Sanaa runway excessive, given the airport’s civilian and humanitarian importance to the Yemeni population.
From Aden, the message was anything but conciliatory. The chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council said on Wednesday that any Houthi move would be met with a comprehensive response or deterrence.
For the region and for European markets, what matters most is what Grundberg called economic de-escalation: merchant ships resuming arrivals at Yemeni ports, oil exports restarting, and commercial flights returning to Sanaa’s airport. The first test of that offer is the next sea shipment that passes through Bab el Mandeb without being struck.
