A Washington Post headline recently declared, “85,000 Yemeni children have starved to death during the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.” Yet this humanitarian crisis for many still needs context.
With settlements in its northern mountains as early as 5000 BC (BCE), Yemen has long been a crossroads of cultures on the Arabian Peninsula. In the early 20th century, it was divided between the British and Ottoman empires, with South Yemen becoming a British colony—the Aden Protectorate—until 1967. The two parts united in 1990 to form the Republic of Yemen.
