French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday renewed calls for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to end the conflict in Yemen. In media statements, Le Drian described the six-year conflict in Yemen as a "dirty war." The conflict in Yemen erupted in September 2014, when the Ansar Allah "Houthi" group, backed by Iran, seized control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Following the Houthi action, Saudi Arabia, the closest regional power to Yemen, announced in March 2015, forming the coalition for supporting legitimacy in Yemen. Besides Saudi Arabia, the coalition includes the UAE; Jordan; Bahrain; Pakistan; Djibouti; Sudan; Senegal; Kuwait; Morocco; Malaysia, and Egypt, as well as the internationally recognised government of Yemen. Qatar was also part of the coalition until the breakdown of the Gulf crisis in May 2017. The conflict in Yemen resulted in killing more than 100,000 civilians and wounding hundreds of thousands. It is also a humanitarian and medical crisis in the impoverished country. Yemen is facing the world's largest humanitarian crisis. Almost 16 million people in Yemen (53% of the population) are experiencing severe acute hunger, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis in December 2018. Without humanitarian food assistance, over 20 million people (67% of the population) would be severely food insecure, with a significant number being on the brink of famine, according to a recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
