For more than 1,000 days now, Yemen has been torn by a ferocious war pitting rebels, known as Houthis (supported by Iran), and forces fighting for former President Ali Abdullah Saleh (who was killed in December) against fighters loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi (supported by Saudi Arabia). Multiple Yemeni tribal militias have aligned with the Hadi government, or the Houthis, or have struck out on their own, seeking independence—and Al Qaeda and ISIS are both attempting to hold or seize territory. A thousand days of airstrikes, civil war, suicide attacks, cholera outbreaks, and near-famine conditions have taken enormous tolls on Yemenis. The nation’s already-fragile infrastructure is under intense pressure as the lack of security and supplies affects every individual and institution. While Saudi Arabia recently agreed to a temporary lifting of its blockade to allow humanitarian relief, on Sunday the Houthi-run Saba news agency reported that 71 civilians were killed in 51 airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition across the country in just 48 hours.
More Than a Thousand Days of War in Yemen
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A man carries Buthaina Muhammad Mansour, an injured girl rescued from the site of a Saudi-led air strike in Sanaa, Yemen, on August 25, 2017. Her bruised eyes still swollen shut, Mansour, believed to be four or five years old, did not yet know that her parents, five siblings and uncle were killed when an airstrike flattened their home in Yemen's capital. Despite a concussion and skull fractures, doctors think Buthaina will pull through—the family's sole survivor in the air attack that residents blame on a Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen since 2015. The alliance said in a statement it would investigate the airstrike, which killed at least 12 civilians. #
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A Yemeni fighter loyal to Yemen's exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fires from a tank during clashes with Shiite Houthi rebels in the country's third city of Taiz on April 6, 2017. #
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Yemenis carry a wounded man past a burning vehicle following a reported suicide car bombing in Huta, the capital of the southern province of Lahj, a bastion of Al-Qaeda jihadists, on March 27, 2017. 10 jihadists, including a suicide bomber, perished when they attacked a government building in southern Yemen, killing six soldiers and four civilians, officials said. #
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A Yemeni man describes how his son was detained by Yemeni forces allied to the United Arab Emirates who raided his home in the southern village of Abr Lasloum in this May 9, 2017, photo. He asked that his identity be obscured, fearing reprisal. Many families have been searching desperately for loved ones who are among hundreds arrested by anti-terror forces over the past year and believed to be held in secret prisons around southern Yemen. Former prisoners report widespread abuse and torture. #
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A Yemeni tribesman from the Popular Resistance Committee, supporting forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, prepares to fire a rocket-propelled grenade in the country's third city Taiz during clashes with Shiite Houthi rebels, on April 16, 2017. #
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A boy reacts as medics attend to him after he was injured by crossfire during clashes between pro-government fighters and Houthi fighters in the southwestern city of Taiz on June 2, 2017. #
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A Yemeni man stands on the rubble of houses destroyed in a suspected Saudi-led coalition airstrike in Sanaa on June 9, 2017. Four civilians, including two teenagers, died "in a strike by the coalition that targeted a civilian house behind the presidential palace in the south of the capital," a medical source said. #
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A Yemeni man covered in bloodstains gestures as others search for survivors in the debris of buildings hit in an airstrike in the residential southern Faj Attan district of the capital, Sanaa, on August 25, 2017. The attack destroyed two buildings in the southern district, leaving people buried under debris, witnesses and medics said. #
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People look at the damage in the aftermath of an airstrike in Sanaa on November 11, 2017. The Saudi-led military coalition carried out two airstrikes on the defense ministry in Yemen's rebel-held capital late on November 10, 2017, witnesses said. #
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A Muslim Yemeni boy with the word "Allah" in Arabic painted on his face attends a rally in the capital Sanaa on the occasion of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday on November 30, 2017. #
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Smoke billows behind a building in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on December 3, 2017, during clashes between Houthi rebels and supporters of Yemeni ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. #
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A Houthi militant reacts as he sits on a tank after the death of Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa on December 4, 2017. Saleh had recently broken with the Houthis publicly and expressed an openness to speaking with Saudi Arabia, when Houthi militants reportedly attacked his car at a checkpoint days later, killing the former president. #
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A picture taken on December 5, 2017, shows the damage after a reported airstrike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition targeted the presidential palace in Yemen's Houthi rebel-held capital, Sanaa. Saudi-led warplanes pounded the rebel-held capital before dawn after the rebels killed former president Ali Abdullah Saleh as he fled the city following the collapse of their uneasy alliance, residents said. #
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A Houthi rebel fighter inspects the damage after a reported airstrike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition targeted the presidential palace in Sanaa on December 5, 2017. #
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Two-month-old Nadia Ahmad Sabri, who suffers from severe malnutrition, lies in bed at a malnutrition treatment center in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, Yemen, on December 20, 2017. #
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A man inspects a house in Sanaa, formerly home to a family of 11, after it was hit by airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition the day before, killing nine members of the family including five children, on December 26, 2017. #
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Members of a family displaced by war in the northwestern areas of Yemen sit in their makeshift hut on a street in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, Yemen, on December 24, 2017. #
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Yemeni tribesmen from the Popular Resistance Committees, supporting forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed president, hold a position during clashes with Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies in Beihan, Shabwa province, on December 15, 2017. #
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A woman with amputated legs waits for her artificial legs at a prosthetic limbs center that is helping war victims in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen, on December 24, 2017. #
Anes Mahyoub / Reuters
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