Yemen Is on the Brink of War Again — Here's What's Happening
Yemen is closer to returning to full-scale war than at any point since a UN-backed peace deal paused the fighting in April 2022, according to UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg, who briefed the Security Council on Thursday as clashes intensify across the country.
Grundberg told the Council that fighting has escalated across Yemen in recent days, with attacks killing both soldiers and civilians. Fighters from the Iran-aligned Houthi group have clashed with Yemeni government forces in several regions, including Marib, Hadramout, al-Makha (Mocha), and others. The Yemeni government, which is based in the city of Aden and is recognised by most of the world, said it repelled a Houthi assault on the city of Taiz. On Wednesday, government forces said they had carried out artillery and drone strikes against Houthi positions across several areas. Also on Wednesday, the head of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council — the body that leads the anti-Houthi side — declared that every Houthi action would be met with a full response.
The warning from Grundberg is not new in its substance but is urgent in its timing. On 10 August, the envoy had already cautioned that Yemen faced a greater risk of renewed large-scale conflict than at any point since the truce (UN press release). Reuters reported on 13 August that the UN judged the escalation to threaten the fragile truce between the Houthis and the internationally recognised government. By Thursday, that assessment had hardened, with Grundberg telling Council members the country stands closer to the brink than at any moment in the truce's lifespan.
The 2022 truce was a landmark two-month agreement that has since been renewed and has largely held. Progress toward a lasting peace deal stalled in 2023 as regional tensions grew. Yemen's conflict began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention the following year. The UN estimates that 377,000 deaths occurred between 2015 and early 2022, with roughly 60 percent caused indirectly by things like food shortages (Council on Foreign Relations).
Grundberg called on the parties to immediately step back from fighting and work toward a formal ceasefire — a binding agreement to stop all military action — which would go beyond the informal understanding that has kept the current truce alive. He urged the warring parties to cooperate on practical measures: ensuring commercial ships can reach Yemeni ports, resuming oil exports, and restarting commercial flights to the Houthi-controlled airport in Sanaa. These were among the economic measures that the 2022 truce partially addressed but never fully carried out.
Grundberg also warned that renewed Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea risk pulling Yemen into the wider regional confrontation between the United States and Iran. That connection between the internal Yemeni conflict and the broader US-Iran rivalry has been a persistent feature of the war's trajectory, and the envoy's decision to name it directly before the Council raises the stakes of the current escalation beyond Yemen's borders.
The humanitarian situation is getting worse at the same time. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the Security Council that more than half of Yemen's population does not have reliable access to enough food, with six million people facing emergency levels of deprivation bordering on famine. Fletcher also reported that three women die every day from preventable pregnancy-related complications.
The British government placed blame squarely on the Houthis. Sarah MacIntosh, the UK's permanent representative at the UN, told the Council that "reckless Houthi" actions are responsible for Yemen's humanitarian crisis, criticising the group's attacks on international shipping and direct strikes on Saudi Arabia. The framing from London aligns with the positions of Western and Gulf states that have used sanctions — measures like freezing assets or banning trade to pressure a group into changing its behaviour — and military force against Houthi targets over the Red Sea campaign.
The Council held its 10208th meeting on Yemen, at which an ambassador warned that the country is at risk of spiraling backwards. The UN-brokered truce, while never turned into a permanent ceasefire, has been the single most effective check on violence since the war's most intense phase. Its erosion would reopen a conflict that has already produced one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.
The broader context here is that Yemen's war has always been tangled up with rivalries far beyond its borders. Think of the truce as a dam holding back a flood — it has never been a full solution, but without it, the destruction returns. Iran supports the Houthis, a Saudi-led coalition backs the government, and the Red Sea shipping lanes the Houthis have attacked are among the busiest trade routes in the world. When Grundberg names the US-Iran dimension directly, he is signalling that what happens in Yemen next could ripple well beyond its borders.
What remains unclear is whether outside powers with influence over either side will push harder for calm or let the truce fall apart. The envoy's appeal for practical economic measures reflects an understanding that the truce's survival depends not only on stopping the shooting but on delivering real benefits that give both parties a reason to keep the peace. With the Presidential Leadership Council publicly committing to a deterrence posture and Houthi forces pressing front-line offensives, the space for diplomacy is narrowing.
