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wattThere are at least Top 10 Conflicts This is what’s happening around the world in early 2026, with events in Iran, Venezuela and Greenland grabbing headlines in recent days. Yemen Civil WarThe campaign, which began in 2014, is often overlooked.
Amid the massacre, the people of Yemen face an escalating humanitarian crisis. Some 23 million people, Two-thirds of the population will require humanitarian assistance by the end of 2025, the country is believed to be experiencing the world’s second-largest food crisis, and nearly half of children under the age of five are considered chronic malnutrition.
Meanwhile, the amount of humanitarian aid arriving in the country has been cut Following Donald Trump’s spending cuts in the United States and other countries, only 24% of requirements will be met in 2025, leaving a funding gap of $1.8 billion.
Oxfam Yemen, one of the country’s leading humanitarian actors, said independent Its funding has dropped by 80% by 2025 compared with previous years.
In northern Yemen, the Houthis, one of the main fighting groups in the war, have arbitrarily detained aid workers, including some, complicating humanitarian operations. 69 United Nations staff and dozens of civil society staff This has prevented some international NGOs from continuing to operate in Houthi-controlled territory over the past 18 months.
Nada Al-Saqaf of Oxfam Yemen said: “The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is no longer in the headlines, which is really sad because you go out onto the streets here and you can see the desperation on people’s faces, many of whom have not received a salary in more than a decade.” independent.
“We often hear about the ‘resilience’ of the Yemeni people during this crisis, but that is not a nice word for us. It romanticizes our struggle when we are just trying to survive.”
Climate change exacerbates conflict
In addition to a protracted conflict that has killed an estimated 400,000 people, Yemen is considered one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate impacts. It is grappling with increasingly frequent extreme weather events, including flash floods, droughts and extreme temperatures.
Since 1971, precipitation in the already arid country has fallen by an average of 6.25 millimeters per decade, according to the World Bank. Extreme heat and declining use of traditional water storage infrastructure mean the country’s overall water availability has fallen by 60% since 1990.
Experts believe the twin challenges of climate change and conflict are exacerbating each other. “Climate change is not the cause of the conflict, but it deepens the wounds,” Sakaf explained. “This exacerbates the problems faced by farmers and makes everything more difficult.”
About Half of Yemen’s workforce are farmersSakaf said the general view is that weather patterns are changing and “the seasons are becoming more chaotic”.
Those affected include Ahmed Mohammed Naji Abdullah, 37, from the Taiz region in western Yemen, who struggles to keep his family farm afloat amid rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and infested pests. “The heat burned our seedlings and the cold destroyed the surviving plants. Everything became unpredictable,” he recalls.
For Mujib Mohammed Ali, another 51-year-old farmer from Taiz, the main problem is access to water, with dry wells forcing the community to travel long distances to fetch water. “Even our animals don’t have a place to graze,” he said. “Life is getting harder every day.”
Research from think tank ODI Global, shared exclusively independentIt found that a “lack of trust” between communities, local authorities and external actors is exacerbating local water tensions in Taiz, an area partly controlled by the Houthis and the Yemeni government. Unregulated drilling is now widespread, with respondents describing it as “anarchy”, while local conflicts over wells, land use, energy and transportation have “escalated significantly”.
The document also found that water governance in Taiz was “undermined” by unclear regulatory mandates and legal ambiguity, as well as by a budget of less than $10,000 per year for the regional branch of the National Water Management Authority. This “regulatory vacuum” fuels dissatisfaction with poor service quality, undermines the legitimacy of the Yemeni government, and hinders peacebuilding and economic reform.
“War is clearly an imminent crisis, but climate stress does not pause during conflict; it exacerbates conflict. It deepens and prolongs human insecurity,” said Mauricio Vazquez, policy director of ODI’s Global Risk and Resilience Program. independent.
“If climate is ignored, it makes recovery more difficult and conflicts more protracted. Climate action in conflict settings does not distract from peace but is part of what makes peace and recovery possible.”
Vázquez’s comments come weeks after those of Yemen’s environment minister. Tawfik Shajabi,Tell independent exist Brazil COP 30 Despite “significant operational and political challenges” facing the government, climate action and access to climate finance remain policy priorities due to how severe extreme weather and drought have become in the country.
“This war and all its tragedies obscure a more fundamental crisis: the catastrophic and escalating impacts of climate change,” he said.
“We cannot expect to build lasting peace when communities are fighting among themselves for the last drop of water or piece of bread, we cannot rely solely on humanitarian aid, we need to create and cultivate our own resilient solutions.”
Overcoming the difficulties of climate adaptation
Despite the challenges posed by the ongoing conflict, a range of positive stories from some communities in Yemen show that people are still able to prosper with the right financial support.
Back in Taiz, farmer Ahmed received training, drought-resistant seeds and materials to build a greenhouse with help from Oxfam. Today, he grows avocados, pomegranates and papayas and provides saplings to other members of the community. “Before, the heat and wind destroyed everything,” he said. “Now, with the greenhouse, my seedlings grow faster and stronger, and I make a real profit.”
Meanwhile, Oxfam built floodwater collection barriers in the Mujib area, helping to retain moisture in the soil, replenish wells and restore agricultural conditions. “The spirit of the people is back,” Mujib said. “We feel safe again and our farms and animals are recovering.”
Another Taiz resident, Jameel Mahyoub Saif, 55, witnessed the village’s wells and reservoirs being repaired with concrete with support from Oxfam. “We used to pay high prices for water and women would have to walk long distances to bring it home,” he recalls. “Now we can drink safely. The water remains clear and floods can no longer damage the reservoir.”
Mohammad Hassan, Oxfam’s Taiz project manager, said the NGO has so far provided greenhouses to 16 farmers, provided capacity-building training to another 58 farmers, built two dams and rehabilitated many catchment basins. He acknowledged that this was likely to be “a small number of beneficiaries,” but the focus was on supporting those communities that were hardest to reach, he said.
“This is short-term financing, but this is a long-term investment,” he said. “These people want to hand over the land to their children, so the investment can continue.”
However, the harsh fact is that Jameel, Ahmed and Mujib are the lucky ones. Most of Yemen’s millions of smallholder farmers are left to fend for themselves amid climate and conflict-driven challenges that they did not create themselves.
“Most Yemenis are just looking for a way of life,” Hassan’s colleague Nada Sakaf told us independent. “The cost of these projects is small, but the impact is huge. Yemen cannot be forgotten from such interventions.”
This article is part of The Independent Rethinking global aid project
