The Yemeni warring parties were unable to reach an agreement during peace talks held in the Kuwaiti capital between April 21 and the end of June. The negotiation sessions were suspended with the intention of being resumed July 15. The resumption of the negotiations remains uncertain, especially after Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi threatened to boycott the next round of talks due to differences with the United Nations special envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. Even if negotiations are resumed, there are no guarantees that they will last for a shorter period or provide a positive outcome.

Meanwhile, the suffering of Yemenis continues with no end in sight for the ongoing war. It is becoming clear that no warring party will be able to claim complete victory, and that the only losers of this war are ordinary Yemeni citizens. With the destruction of basic infrastructure and the slow recovery in the “liberated” areas in the south of Yemen and most importantly the devaluation of the Yemeni riyal, the costs of this war are borne by Yemenis.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 14 million Yemenis are food insecure, about 3 million people are internally displaced and the funding of the UN humanitarian response plan is far from sufficient, with only $450 million being collected from donors out of the $1.8 billion the agency needs to finance its humanitarian response plan.

It is evident that the performance of Hadi’s internationally recognized government is far from satisfactory; liberated southern cities are lacking basic infrastructure. The city of Aden, for instance, which was freed from the Houthi grip a year ago, still faces severe electricity and water cuts that sometimes last for days. The security situation is deteriorating; deadly suicide bombings killed seven people in Marib in May and 42 people in Mukalla in June.