00:00Dr. Elizabeth Kendall is a Middle East expert and president of Girton College at Cambridge University.
00:06Elizabeth, welcome back. Good to see you.
00:08Pro-government forces say they've secured the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and captured Mokar,
00:14but the Houthis deny this. So what should we make of these conflicting claims?
00:20Clients. Conflicting claims like this are a normal part of war and, in particular, normal for a war where foreign
00:32journalists find it very difficult to get access.
00:36It's very hard to unravel exactly what's going on until the dust settles.
00:41Both sides will be wanting to claim that they've made advances.
00:46But it's worth saying that we always expected it to be difficult for the Houthis to hang on to the
00:53territory that they had conquered over the recent few weeks,
00:57because that new territory is low-lying, it's exposed, the Houthis are not well entrenched there.
01:04So one would expect, with a concerted military campaign, that Yemen's internationally recognized government could now start to take it
01:14back.
01:14The game-changer would be if the Yemeni ground forces on the behalf of the government and Saudi air power
01:22are coordinating well.
01:24But for now, let's just be wary of reporting in the fog of war.
01:29Accepted. Given that, if government forces have regained control of much of Yemen's Red Sea coast,
01:37does this represent a genuine turning point in the war, or could these gains prove temporary?
01:47It certainly would be significant if the Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces are starting to take back that territory,
01:57because the name of their operation is Dawn of Yemen.
02:01It certainly sounds like a turning point.
02:04And after four years of a Saudi strategy of containment and concessions towards the Houthis,
02:13actually having Saudi Arabia now re-escalate militarily inside Yemen via the Yemeni government forces would be significant.
02:22But I think we need to wait to see whether this is a sustainable turnaround.
02:27Not only whether this is sustainable in terms of the government forces taking back this newly held territory,
02:35but also will the Yemeni government forces be able to go further?
02:40Will they be able to take other key territory, like Hodeidah port on the West Coast,
02:46or indeed the capital, Sana'a itself?
02:49They're claiming that this is their ambition, but that would be a real litmus test,
02:54if they're starting to take back not just the newly conquered territory,
02:57but also territory that the Houthis had conquered prior to the 2022 truce.
03:03So let's wait to see what happens there.
03:05200,000 people reportedly displaced since this latest fighting intensified.
03:12How serious is the humanitarian situation?
03:17The humanitarian situation is very serious, and it's often overlooked.
03:23I'm glad you've raised it.
03:24Yes, over the course of the whole of the 12-year most recent war in Yemen,
03:29in fact, we've had around about 5 million internally displaced people altogether during that time,
03:37and it had started to improve since the 2022 truce.
03:41So it's really distressing to see that start to unravel again.
03:46And it might be worth pointing out that the United Nations did come up with a humanitarian response plan for
03:532026,
03:55but only around a fifth, 20% of the 2.2 billion that is required has been raised.
04:03And we're talking about a situation where 22 million Yemenis are in need of some kind of aid,
04:10and 18 million face food shortages.
04:13So it is very serious indeed.
04:15And from where things are going on the ground, it looks like it will only get worse.
04:21Elizabeth, good to see you.
04:23Thank you very much indeed for your time.
04:24Dr. Elizabeth Kendall, the Middle East expert and president of Girton College at Cambridge University.
