Is Yemen Sliding Back Into War? Houthi Attacks Raise UN Alarm

Yemen faces its highest risk of sliding back into full-scale war since the 2022 truce, the United Nations warned, as renewed military activity and attacks along the country's front lines threaten to unravel the fragile calm.

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg told the Security Council that recent developments had heightened the risk of escalation and urged all parties to immediately de-escalate and work towards a durable ceasefire.

“Attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden […] risk deepening Yemen’s entanglement with the wider regional confrontation,” he said.

Why Is Yemen At Risk Of Returning To War?

Citing intensifying military activity along the country’s frontline, including recent attacks by the group Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, he warned that regional trade and energy flows are already under extreme pressure amid the Strait of Hormuz standoff.

“Yemen today faces a more serious risk of return to large-scale conflict than at any point since the 2022 UN-mediated truce,” Grundberg said. He credited the truce with a sharp reduction in violence in several briefings over recent years.

UN Warns Of Wider Regional Fallout

Grundberg recounted several serious incidents in July, some of them deadly.  An unauthorized flight from Tehran toward the Yemeni city of Sana’a was followed by airstrikes on Sana’a’s airport, missile attacks on Abha airport and strikes on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.  And just this week, he said, a Houthi missile attack on a commercial vessel killed several crew members.

“For four years, and well beyond its formal expiry, the truce kept Yemen’s front lines relatively quiet,” he said. Even amid the wider turmoil that has engulfed the region since 2023, Yemen remained mostly calm, providing much-needed respite for civilians.

However, he said, the truce was always designed as a means, not an end.  Its primary objective was to open the way to negotiations on a comprehensive settlement of the conflict.  A return to large-scale fighting now would come at an “unforgiving moment”, with Yemen’s State institutions still fragmented, its economy unstable and the wider region engulfed by war.

Citing his meetings with representatives of the parties in recent weeks, he said both sides, the Government and the Houthis, must immediately de-escalate and work towards a ceasefire. “Economic de-escalation” is urgently needed, and the resumption of oil exports, with appropriate security guarantees, would provide a critical source of income for Yemen’s recovery.

Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, who was present at the briefing, highlighted that despite the years of calmer security conditions, millions of Yemenis still face impossible daily choices, “Food or medicine, education or labour, survival or displacement.” 6 million people across the country — the highest number globally — are experiencing “emergency” levels of deprivation, nearing famine.