Yemen

Yemen ( ; Arabic: ٱلْيَمَنْ, romanized: al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. It is located in the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast. It shares maritime borders with Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia. Covering 530,000 square kilometres (204,634 square miles) and having a coastline of approximately 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles), Yemen is the second-largest Arab sovereign state on the Arabian Peninsula. Sanaa is its constitutionally stated capital and largest city. The country's population is estimated to be 34.7 million as of 2023. Yemen is a member of the Arab League, the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. In ancient times, Yemen was the home of the Sabaeans, a trading state that included parts of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. Later in 275 AD, the Himyarite Kingdom was influenced by Judaism. Christianity arrived in the fourth century, and Islam spread rapidly in the seventh century, with Yemenite troops playing a crucial role in early Islamic conquests. Various dynasties emerged between the 9th and 16th centuries. During the 1800s, the country was divided between the Ottoman and British empires. After World War I, the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen was established, followed by the creation of the Yemen Arab Republic in 1962. South Yemen became independent in 1967. In 1990, the two Yemeni states united to form the modern Republic of Yemen (al-Jumhūrīyah al-Yamanīyah). President Ali Abdullah Saleh was the first president of the new republic until his resignation in 2012 in the wake of the Arab Spring.Since 2011, Yemen has been facing a political crisis, marked by street protests against poverty, unemployment, corruption, and president Saleh's plan to amend Yemen's constitution and eliminate the presidential term limit. Subsequently, the country has been engulfed in a civil war with multiple entities vying for governance, including the government of President Hadi (later the Presidential Leadership Council), the Houthi movement's Supreme Political Council, and the separatist Southern Movement's Southern Transitional Council. This ongoing conflict has led to a severe humanitarian crisis and received widespread criticism for its devastating impact on Yemen's people.The ongoing humanitarian crisis and conflict has received widespread criticism for having a dramatic worsening effect on Yemen's humanitarian situation, that some say has reached the level of a "humanitarian disaster" and some have even labelled it as a genocide. Yemen is one of the least developed countries in the world, facing significant obstacles to sustainable development and is one of the poorest countries in the MENA region. The United Nations reported in 2019 that Yemen had the highest number of people in need of humanitarian aid, amounting to about 24 million individuals, which is nearly 75% of its population. As of 2020, Yemen ranked highest on the Fragile State Index and second-worst on the Global Hunger Index, surpassed only by the Central African Republic. Additionally, it has the lowest Human Development Index out of all non-African countries.