For years, Saudi Arabia imposed a land, air and sea blockade on the people of Yemen. This effort was fully backed by the United States. The blockade was a tactic in Saudi Arabia's war against the Houthis in Yemen. The result was mass starvation — at one point during the war, a child in Yemen was dying every 75 seconds from starvation and deprivation. The blockade wouldn't be possible without diplomatic and military support from the United States government. Assistance with the blockade was not the only war crime the United States implicated itself in.
The Saudi government is one of the largest importers of US weapons — via weapons shipments green lit by successive American presidents. When Saudi Arabia started the war on Yemen began in 2014, the US was quick to support them. Over the years, more activists in the US started calling it the "Saudi-US War on Yemen" or the "Saudi-led US-backed" war on Yemen. The United States shared intelligence for airstrikes with Saudi Arabia. They also participated in mid-air refueling of Saudi war planes until 2018, so they could keep bombing Yemen uninterrupted. Of course, the US supplied billions of dollars in weapons and bombs to Saudi Arabia. There were multiple instances of war crimes during the conflict where Yemenis found bomb wreckage that read "Made in the USA".
With the blockade, and the foreign-led war, Yemen became the "world's worst humanitarian crisis" as described by the United Nations. A quarter of a million people were killed by bombings, but mostly from starvation and lack of access to clean water.
CODEPINK has a vast record of educational material on the war. For a brief history on Yemen, and how the war came to be, you can listen to CODEPINK Radio with Dr. Shireen Al-Adeimi and Hassan El-Tayyab. For more recent context on Yemen, and how the Houthis are involved in the ongoing situation in Gaza, you can listen to our Co-Director Danaka Katovich interview Dr. Al-Adeimi.
CODEPINK, like we do any other conflict, advocates for an end to US weapons shipments and sales to Saudi Arabia. We also demand an end to all US involvement, and hope that the Yemeni people will get a chance to chart their own course without foreign involvement. We, alongside our Yemeni partners, helped organize a global day of action for Yemen on January 25th, 2021 that had protests all over the world against foreign intervention in Yemen. While we worked to educate the public during the active war in Yemen, we also acknowledge that the US has been involved in Yemen for a long time, long before 2014. Yemen was a focus in the US war on terror, where the Obama Administration went as far as assassinating Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, a 16 year old US citizen in Yemen.
More Resources from CODEPINK on the Saudi-led War on Yemen:
Yemen Explained - CODEPINK Congress Capitol Calling Party
Our Disaster: Why the United States bears responsibility for Yemen’s humanitarian crisis