Yemen – Numbers without Faces – 11 Years of Civil War
Malte I. Lauterbach

A destroyed hospital. One of the war's first victims – civilian infrastructure.

In his article "Numbers without Faces" (original English title: “The Untold Casualties of War“), Malte Lauterbach writes about the fates of those in Yemen's civil war. The piece was published in English in 2020 and was fundamentally revised in 2022, on the anniversary of the war's beginning. The article was originally written before the events of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent regular rocket and drone attacks on Israel by the Houthi movement. Some information has since been updated and edited.

When journalists report on wars, we often speak in numbers – so many dead, so many injured. Whether intended or not, this leaves readers with only statistics, not faces. But behind every number is a person, a life, a friend, an enemy, a soul, perhaps a future inventor.

I wonder how many lives we can report on before we drown in the numbers. In the wake of the Arab Spring, mass protests also occurred in Yemen in 2011, culminating in a revolution.

This is where the world first encountered the Houthi movement (Ansar Allah, Arabic ٱلْحُوثِيُّون) – an Islamist terror group a movement that is classified by most states as a terrorist organization. In 2004, it came to the world's attention when its slogan "God is great, death to the USA, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam" became known. Together with other opposition groups, they organized protests. At that time—regardless of their motto—they still acted more like a political force and participated in conferences about Yemen's future.

At the end of 2014, the Houthis resumed their relationship with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was overthrown in 2011, and within a short time, they took control of the capital Sanaa and large parts of the north through coordinated military and political actions. Since then, they have been fighting against the Saudi-led coalition, which is trying to reinstate the internationally recognized government. Their most important external support comes mainly from Iran; there are occasional reports of cooperation with Russia. Since 2015, Houthi units have repeatedly attacked Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – attacks that are predominantly classified worldwide as Iranian proxy operations. The drones used are derived from Iranian Qasef-1/2k models; drones whose direct relative, the Shahed-136, is also used extensively against civilian targets in Ukraine, among other places.

The Houthi attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea since November 2023 have internationalized the conflict. The USA, the United Kingdom, and allies launched Operation Prosperity Guardian in January 2024 to protect shipping and, by January 2025, had conducted several air and missile strikes against Houthi positions.

Since the outbreak of the civil war in 2014, hundreds of thousands of people have died in Yemen – hundreds of thousands of dreams, lives, memories, and ideas have been lost. According to UN estimates, over 500,000 people had died by the end of 2021 (directly and indirectly). That means an average of about ≈ 130 deaths per day – 5 per hour, or roughly one every 11 minutes. Not all die from direct acts of war: Since 2014, the country has been plagued by famine and cholera. Yemen is considered one of the poorest countries in the world; the average life expectancy is currently around 64 years. In many regions, the supply of clean water has collapsed, and electricity is only sporadic. More than 4.8 million people have been displaced to date, tearing families apart. According to the UN, 19.5 million people will require humanitarian aid in 2025.

In 2020, I had the honor of speaking with a Yemeni man named Aaron – his name means "mountain of strength." He himself spoke little, letting me do most of the talking about who I was and where I came from. About what he had seen, about the burns on his body, he didn't say a word. I knew. He knew. We all knew what had happened, but not why it had happened: why the Houthi fighters had wiped out his house, his wife, his daughter, all the memories. His child hadn't even turned eight.

What impressed me most about Aaron was that he did not lose hope. Even in the darkest times, he trusted in love, family, humanity.

I wonder how many people someone can extinguish before the numbers destroy them. From Aaron's story, I learned a lot about human behavior. Hope is a powerful tool – for surviving, for living, for fighting, even when there is nothing left to defend. Although only memories and a few unburned photos remained of Hana, his daughter ("happiness"), he fought on. But in the stream of events, Hana is just a number – a death hidden from the world.

Until 2020, here in a Europe without civil war, without cholera, without famine, no one knew the story of Aaron's family. It stands for thousands of others, waiting to be told – as a warning to a world that often looks away.

It is our duty to give faces to the numbers. We must breathe life into the dead, preserve lost memories, help the bereaved to mourn. We must tell the stories of Hana, Abia, and countless other Yemenis whose names will not appear in any history book. To remember those who did not survive; like Abu Khamis, who asked to be buried next to his family so they could comfort each other in death.

Whoever has seen suffering once will encounter it again. As human beings, we are forced to remember – what happened, what was lost, what remained. This memory admonishes us to warn against what is happening.

Thank you for reading this article. You now know the names Aaron and Hana – and with that, they are not lost.

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Malte Ian Lauterbach, on the border with Lebanon, 2024.