Philip Whiteside, international news reporter

The conflict in Yemen is the world's forgotten war.

Unlike the fighting in Syria, it does not pit Russian forces against Western-backed allies and it does not feature any groups as prone to headlines as the Islamic State. But it has still caused suffering to untold millions.

:: A report from the frontline of world's worst humanitarian crisis

A coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which backs Yemen's officially recognised government, is battling against Houthi rebels, who are Yemeni but are thought to be backed by Iran.


Here are six people whose stories help explain why Yemenis are facing daily misery as conditions go from bad to worse.

The Houthi rebel

Standing in front of the smashed remains of a building near Yemen's presidential palace, the Houthi fighter appears resolute.

He picks his way through damage and destruction that is a daily part of life for those living in the Yemeni capital Sana'a.

Image: A Houthi rebel inspects damage caused after an airstrike reportedly carried out by the Saudi-led coalition

The day before, his group had killed the country's former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, with whom they had been in an alliance since 2015.

The Houthis accused the Machiavellian Saleh of double crossing them and planning to defect to their opponents.

It had been an effective alliance, with the Houthi-Saleh forces taking swathes of the country and pushing back pro-government forces.

Image: Documentation that Saudi Arabia says proves Houthi missiles fired at it from Yemen are Iranian

Since then, they have been locked in a war of attrition with a Saudi-led coalition which backs Yemen's officially recognised government.

The Saudis were fearful that the Shia-dominated Houthis would become proxies of the government of Iran - their sworn enemies - and have been carrying out an air war against them.

But the Houthis had been drawn into all-out war over a prolonged period.

Most are drawn from a tribe of predominantly Shia Yemenis who hail from the north of the country, called the Zaydi.

They began a low-level insurgency as long ago as 2004 in response to the killing of one of their leaders, Hussein al Houthi.

After the Arab Spring in 2011 led to optimism among those in the Middle East opposed to long-standing regimes, the group stepped up their involvement in the country's power play.

Image: An image from a video Houthi rebels say was the launch of a missile attack in March 2018

It led to their seizing the capital in 2014, the presidential palace in 2015 and then gaining further ground in the west of the country, before being driven back in some areas.

The group has been accused of aiding Iran in its "Middle Eastern cold war" with Saudi Arabia, but at least one UN figure says the Houthis are not under the command of the Iranians.

Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of supplying the group with its weapons, citing evidence of Iranian-made missiles, fired at Riyadh and another town from Houthi-held territory in Yemen in 2017.

But Iran has rejected the allegations, saying Houthi action in November of that year was "independent" and as "a result of Saudi Arabia's aggression".

New York-based Human Rights Watch has, meanwhile, accused the Houthis of a range of human rights abuses in areas they control, including hostage taking, torture and enforced disappearances.

US-made bomb victim

Five-year-old Buthaina sits in a hospital bed, her eyes puffed up from the severe bruising and fractures she received when her home was destroyed by a suspected Saudi airstrike.

"She had five siblings to play with. Now she has none," says her uncle Ali al Raymi.

Image: Buthaina, a five year old girl who was a victim of an alleged Saudi airstrike. Pic: Amnesty International

Amnesty International says that Buthaina's injuries and the deaths of her parents, siblings and other civilians were caused by a US-made bomb that hit her house in Sana'a.

The campaign group's arms expert says he has examined photographic evidence provided by a local journalist who dug fragments of the device out of the ruins.

He positively identified the device's data plate that, the group says, shows it was a part of a laser controlled air-to-ground weapon.

Image: Buthaina being carried out of her house alive after her siblings and parents died

Amnesty says that US Defence Security Cooperation Agency documents show that the sale of 2,800 such devices was authorised to Saudi Arabia in 2015.

The group also says it has evidence that British-made bombs have been used in an attack on a civilian factory.

UK export licences show more than £4.8bn-worth of British-made arms have been sold to Saudi Arabia since March 2015, when the Saudis announced they were beginning bombing raids, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade.

And on 6 September, foreign minister Alistair Burt admitted that the UK had issued licences for weapons systems to be supplied "for end use in Saudi Arabia".

Image: A fragment of the bomb that hit Buthaina's house that Amnesty says is US-made. Pic: Amnesty International

Groups like Amnesty say that attacks by the Saudi-led coalition, using weapons supplied by the West, are responsible for thousands of casualties.

Indeed, a group of experts tasked by the UN Human Right Council in August 2018 found that "coalition airstrikes have caused most direct civilian casualties" during the war.

It found evidence that airstrikes have hit markets, funerals, weddings, civilians boats and medical facilities.

The Saudis later admitted the attack on Buthaina's house had been "unfortunate" and expressed "remorse" after the "incident was caused by a technical error" but added that their original target was legitimate as it was one used by Houthis, which had been created to use civilians as shields.

Image: Buthaina's siblings, all of whom are now dead after an airstrike on their house. Pic: Courtesy of Amnesty International

Following a coalition strike on a school bus in August, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told congress that Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates were taking active steps to protect civilians.

But he added that measures had been taken that would allow the US to continue refuelling aircraft used by the Saudi coalition in the war.

The Obama administration had suspended the sale of precision-guided technology to the Saudis in December 2016 because of concerns over civilian casualties, but the Trump administration has since overturned that ban.

The UN group of experts called on all countries, including the UK, to refrain from providing arms to forces taking part in Yemen's conflict.

The starving child

One-year-old Nusair was slowly starving to death when he was brought in to a health centre run by aid agency Save The Children.

The youngster was suffering from malnutrition and diarrhoea when he and his mother Suad braved landmines and airstrikes to get treatment.

Image: Nusair, a victim of malnutrition helped by Save The Children

He is from Hodeidah, a town that has been under regular blockade because it is a port town the Saudi-led coalition believes is being used to supply the Houthis with arms.

The city has also faced regular bombardment, as rebels and pro-government forces have battled for control.

It has meant youngsters like Nusair have often gone hungry as their parents have struggled, either to find work to put food on the table or to afford what they need to survive.

Image: Children are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition in Yemen's conflict, like this child in Sana'a in last week.

At least 65,000 Yemeni children have been treated for malnutrition by Save The Children and its local partners in the last year and an estimated 36,000 under-fives have died from not receiving enough food.

Many of those affected are trapped in war-torn areas from which they are unable to escape because of a blockade on Hodeidah.

The operation to cut off the port was launched by the Saudis in 2015 to prevent the Houthis being supplied with weapons from the sea - but it has also hit access to food, with 90% of what the country eats and drinks coming from imports, according to Oxfam.

Food prices have spiralled and the fighting has prevented much of the aid that is entering the country getting to where it is needed most.

Image: Fighting in and around Hodeidah has left those displaced dependent on aid

Meanwhile, millions of Yemenis have been unable to work, so they cannot afford to feed their children.

In recent months there was a lull in the fighting around Hodeidah, but Save The Children now says that hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children could die if renewed attacks damage or temporarily close the port.

The charity's Yemen representative, Tamer Kirolos, said: "Even the smallest disruption to food, fuel and aid supplies through its vital port could mean death for hundreds of thousands of malnourished children unable to get the food they need to stay alive."

The Saudi-led coalition has resumed the offensive to capture Hodeidah after peace talks collapsed earlier this month.

If the fighting continues, Save The Children says a million more children in Yemen could fall into famine, taking the total number to 5.2 million.

The refugee

Since 2015, home for 11-year-old Fatemah has been a ramshackle tent made from scraps of wood and plastic tarpaulins.

The youngster and her family were forced to flee from Sana'a's al Haymah district as intense fighting for control of the territory left their lives in danger.

Image: Fatemah,11, stands outside her family's makeshift shelter at the Dharawan settlement. Pic: UNHCR/Mohammad Hamoud

The settlement of 250 or so tents on the outskirts of the capital provides some shelter, but life living on a dirt floor and without clean water is a constant daily struggle.

"I lost my education, which I loved so much. Every night we sleep hungry, dreaming that we are eating," she says.

Image: Tens of thousands of displaced families are forced to live in tents

Fatemah is one of more than 2.4 million people in Yemen who have fled their homes, with most living in overcrowded and makeshift shelters, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Some of the displaced have been living in tents for decades, with fighting having been going on in some places since the early 1990s unification war.

In addition, more than 250,000 people are living in Yemen after fleeing from other war-torn countries - most from Somalia, across the Gulf of Aden.

With around one in 10 of Yemen's population displaced, aid agencies and the UN have had to step in to help.

Image: A girl who lives in a camp for displaced people

But the internally displaced and refugees are just the tip of the iceberg.

The UN estimates that nearly 20 million people are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance.

About 14 million Yemenis do not have access to good healthcare, millions are struggling to find even basic foods and hundreds of schools have been damaged beyond use.

According to the Arab News website, more than one million Yemenis have also fled across the border to neighbouring countries.

The cholera doctor

Dr Anisa has been a doctor for 27 years, with 15 of them spent in Sana'a.

She is the last hope for thousands of sick Yemenis in the nation's capital, many of whom have suffered from cholera.

Image: Dr Anisa, who works in a clinic treating sick people in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a. Pic: Teresa Goncalves, Red Cross

Faded medical posters line the walls of her clinic warning against the often-fatal disease, which ravaged the country in 2017.

But cholera is accelerating again, according to the latest data from the World Health Organisation.

Anisa's clinic began to see increasing numbers of cases from mid-2015 and the country now faces the world's worst outbreak in modern times.

She has treated untold numbers, but work like hers for the Red Crescent - the sister organisation to the Red Cross - has not stopped hundreds across Yemen from dying.

Image: A Yemeni child suspected of being infected with cholera is checked in the northern district of Abs last year

"During the beginning of the cholera outbreak I received hundreds of cases," she said. "We were able to give patients IV fluids and monitor them until they were able to be moved.

"Alongside cholera, I received around 300 cases of malnutrition a month. They didn't just come from Sana'a they came from all over the country."

Although it bubbled under the surface for some months, Yemen's cholera epidemic erupted in April 2017, and since then a total of 1.2 million suspected cases have been reported with 2,515 deaths.

Image: UNICEF is among the agencies which has been immunising children against cholera during lulls in fighting. Pic: UNICEF/Al Haj

The Red Cross says the problem has been exacerbated by poor access to healthcare.

Dr Anisa said: "People come here because they trust me.

"Most of our patients are very poor. They can't buy medicine. Sometimes I have patients that I prescribe medication, but when they come back for a check-up the next month they haven't been able to buy it so their condition has often deteriorated."

Doctors across the country, from agencies such as WHO and UNICEF have been immunising people.

Save The Children and the Red Cross have been providing essential supplies to treat those showing symptoms.

But all the agencies say the lack of access to clean water - with many displaced people and those in battle zones forced to drink from unsafe sources and an estimated 20 million people without access to clean water or sanitation - means the conditions for the spread of cholera are rife.

The pro-government fighter

The soldier grapples with his large gauge machine gun as the truck he is riding in drives past a mural featuring the face of the former president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan.

He is loyal to the Saudi and UAE-backed government and could be Yemeni, but could also be from one of a number of countries who have pledged to offer support to their coalition.

Image: A pro-government soldier passing by a mural of the late UAE founder Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan in the city of Mukalla

The Emirates have become increasingly significant in the war that was deepened by the Saudis armed intervention from 2015.

In that year, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya News reported the kingdom had deployed 100 fighter jets, 150,000 soldiers and other navy units.

But they were joined by the UAE, as well as Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, with Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Sudan offering support, according to the Boston Globe and Mail.

While Qatar has since pulled out, the UAE has gone on to be a key player, striking alliances of its own - sometimes with unforeseen consequences.

Jonathan Fenton-Harvey in the Middle East Eye says that while the Saudi government's aim has been to restore President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi to power, the UAE aims to divide Yemen so that a southern state emerges that will become its ally.

Critics of the UAE claim that it has been involved in crushing dissent, using arbitrary detentions and torture of people it says are extremists.

Image: A Yemeni pro-government fighter with UAE-supported forces fires a rocket launcher on the frontline of Kirsh, southwestern Yemen

But some researchers such as Helen Lackner say that, because of the UAE's ambitions, it forges alliances that are often contrary to the aims of the Saudis, with group that have relations with al Qaeda, for example.

This is despite the US-allied Saudis being hostile to the terror group that was home to Osama bin Laden.

The US carried out numerous drone attacks on al Qaeda targets in Yemen in the 2000s and has remained effectively at war with it, but the group has managed to retain a significant presence in Yemen.

Meanwhile, the Saudis continue to wage war on the Houthis, who not only claim to be the legitimate government because they are in control of the capital, they also oppose al Qaeda.

Hadi's government, which currently still sits in Riyadh, remains unpopular in many quarters and in October there were street protests because of his ministers' failure to improve the economy in areas where they are in control.

Iran, meanwhile, despite the international agreement on its nuclear capabilities in 2015, has become increasingly isolated as US allies link it to terrorism, making the prospect of a peace agreement more and more slim.