VII. Lack of Humanitarian Access

Since the armed conflict began in 2004, humanitarian agencies working in Sa'da governorate have faced a wide range of challenges in gaining access to the displaced and other civilians in need of assistance. Precisely because the government has effectively prevented humanitarian agencies, journalists, and others from accessing most parts of the governorate, there is little evidence that on any given date the authorities' refusal to allow access was arbitrary, in contravention of international law.

Those restrictions have also prevented humanitarian agencies from determining the full extent of the conflict's impact on civilians, and their needs in the aftermath. The restrictions on access documented in this report show that the government broadly and systematically–and without transparent and persuasive reasons–prevented impartial national and international humanitarian agencies from reaching civilians to assess their needs and respond with assistance. What is clear is that the need is great, and that assistance has not reached rural areas, where many displaced persons remain camped, sometimes in the wild, and where government restrictions still prevent humanitarian agencies from providing assistance.

One foreign diplomat in San'a told Human Rights Watch that an official from the Deputy Minister of Planning's office told diplomats that the Yemeni government did not want foreign nationals seeing what was happening in Sa'da governorate.[87] During the fifth round of fighting the authorities granted a national humanitarian agency close to the government access to areas that they refused to give to international agencies, indicating that security was less of a reason than official discomfort with international staff witnessing what was taking place inside the war zone.[88] Because the need is considerably greater than what the national agencies can provide, the government's refusal to allow international humanitarian agencies access appears to violate its obligation to ensure that the population gets the assistance it needs to ensure survival.

Humanitarian law relating to access

International humanitarian law provides that a civilian population suffering hardship is entitled to receive humanitarian relief essential to its survival.[89] Parties to a conflict must facilitate impartial relief. While parties can take measures to control the content and delivery of humanitarian aid, they cannot deliberately impede delivery, and under no circumstances may a party arbitrarily refuse aid agencies access to affected populations.[90]

Article 18(2) of Protocol II states:

If the civilian population is suffering undue hardship owing to a lack of the supplies essential for its survival, such as foodstuffs and medical supplies, relief actions for the civilian population which are of an exclusively humanitarian and impartial nature and which are conducted without any adverse distinction shall be undertaken subject to the consent of the High Contracting Party concerned.[91] 

According the ICRC's authoritative commentary to Protocol II, the consent requirement does not mean that the decision is left to the parties' discretion: 

If the survival of the population is threatened and a humanitarian organization fulfilling the required conditions of impartiality and non-discrimination is able to remedy this situation, relief actions must take place… The authorities responsible for safeguarding the population in the whole of the territory of the State cannot refuse such relief without good grounds.[92]

Likewise, customary international humanitarian law provides that parties must ensure the freedom of movement of authorized humanitarian relief agencies, and that only in case of "imperative military necessity" may their movements be temporarily restricted.[93] A party to the conflict can claim "imperative military necessity" if it believes that relief operations will "interfere with military operations" and such an exception can only be "limited and temporary."[94]

International humanitarian law provides special protection for humanitarian relief workers, which considers their safety and security an indispensable condition for the delivery of humanitarian aid.[95] In numerous conflicts, the UN Security Council has urged all parties to internal armed conflicts to respect and protect humanitarian workers.[96] Like civilians, humanitarian aid workers are entitled to protection from direct or indiscriminate attack.[97] Parties may not harass, intimidate or arbitrarily detain them.[98] Objects used in humanitarian relief operations, such as food, medicines, and vehicles are civilian objects and must be respected and protected.[99] Destruction, theft and looting of such objects is prohibited.[100] The UN Guiding Principles in Internal Displacement also prohibit all interference with humanitarian aid agencies and their work.[101]

Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement relating to access

Internally displaced persons are protected under international law both during periods of armed conflict and in peacetime. The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement set out the rights of IDPs to receive humanitarian assistance that protects their basic social and economic needs, such as access to food and water, health care and shelter. Displaced civilians in Yemen are entitled to the protection of all their rights while they are displaced, and must not face discrimination because of their displacement.[102]

The Yemeni government has the "primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to IDPs" and IDPs have the "right to request and receive protection and humanitarian assistance" from the Yemeni authorities.[103] If the Yemeni authorities do not provide assistance, then aid agencies:

Have the right to offer their services in support of IDPs [which] … shall be considered in good faith. Consent thereto shall not be arbitrarily withheld, particularly when authorities concerned are unable or unwilling to provide the required humanitarian assistance… All authorities concerned shall grant and facilitate the free passage of humanitarian assistance and grant persons engaged in the provision of such assistance rapid and unimpeded access to IDPs.[104]

Regarding the type of assistance to which all IDPs are entitled, the Guiding Principles make clear that "at a minimum, regardless of the circumstances" they shall receive help to "ensure safe access to … (a) essential food and potable water; (b) basic shelter and housing; (c) appropriate clothing; and (d) essential medical services and sanitation."[105]

The Guiding Principles also set out the rights of special groups, such as "children, especially unaccompanied minors, expectant mothers, mothers with young children, female heads of household, persons with disabilities and elderly persons" to receive assistance "required by their condition and to treatment which takes into account their special needs."[106]

Regarding health care, "all wounded and sick IDPs as well as those with disabilities shall receive to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention they require" including "access to psychological and social services." Furthermore, "special attention should be paid to the health needs of women, including access to female health care providers and services … as well as appropriate counseling for victims of sexual and other abuses."[107]

Lack of humanitarian access between the fourth and fifthrounds of fighting (June 18, 2007 to May 10, 2008)

Even during extended lulls in the fighting, such as the nearly one-year interval between the fourth and fifth rounds, national and international humanitarian aid agencies found it impossible to access most parts of Sa'da governorate.

At the end of July 2007, over a month after the official end of the fourth round of violence, the government still prohibited national aid agencies from reaching civilians affected by the conflict.[108] In subsequent months some agencies were able to reach a very limited number of rural areas, and only on a sporadic basis.[109] One year later, a month after the end of the fifth round of fighting in July 2008, aid agencies faced similar constraints (see below).

Most international aid agencies first began working in Sa'da after the end of the

fourth round of fighting, which officially ended on June 18, 2007. Since that time, agencies have mostly been limited to working in Sa'da town or, in limited cases, to a few smaller towns, requiring IDPs and other vulnerable populations to risk crossing military, Huthi, and tribal checkpoints to reach aid.

Between the fourth and fifth round of fighting, the government broadly and systematically denied all international aid agencies access to Sa'da governorate's rural areas, citing general security concerns. In early 2008, the government denied agencies permission to undertake assessment missions in areas believed to contain large numbers of civilians in need, citing landmines as well as ongoing clashes between the Huthis and security forces, and between the Huthis and pro-government tribes.[110]

On a few exceptional occasions, the government granted permission for assessment missions. However, due to government restrictions on access to the mobile phone network in Sa'da governorate beginning in 2007, agencies were unable to reach Huthi contacts to obtain security guarantees and so could not travel.[111]

Between June 2007 and May 2008, the UN World Food Program's (WFP) partner agencies distributed food to tens of thousands of IDPs living in camps in Sa'da town and with host families of the town, and to approximately 10,000 people who regularly came to Sa'da town from rural areas to collect their rations.[112] However, an unknown number of civilians who were unable to reach Sa'da town-probably numbering in the tens of thousands-received no help. Insecurity, coupled with the UN's concern that Yemenis throughout the country view the UN as a pro-Western or pro-American agency and not a neutral humanitarian or developmental force, led the UN not to travel to Sa'da's rural areas.[113] The WFP carried out a food security assessment outside of Sa'da town in October 2007, and as of October 2008 had not yet completed a new assessment.[114]

In the nine months prior to the outbreak of renewed fighting in May 2008, humanitarian agencies were able to carry out medical work in a number of small towns in Sa'da governorate, though the Ministry of Interior required each of them without exception to get permission for each and every trip undertaken from the capital to these towns.[115]

Concerns surrounding the lack of access to Sa'da governorate's rural areas were heightened by the fact that civilians were often unable to pass through government, Huthi, or tribal checkpoints to reach district towns and access medical services.

Lack of humanitarian access during the fifth round of fighting (May 10, 2008 to July 17, 2008)

During the most recent round of fighting, from May 10 until July 17, 2008, international humanitarian agencies were unable to access any of the estimated 30,000 displaced people living in the rural areas of Sa'da, al-Jauf, and `Amran governorates. The government systematically prohibited almost all travel in rural areas, delaying decisions and negotiations with aid agencies, and turning down individual agency requests for access one by one.[116]

National aid agencies, including the Yemeni Red Crescent, told Human Rights Watch that they were usually prevented from accessing rural areas at military checkpoints, which allowed them to reach only one or two pockets of civilians on a limited number of occasions.[117]

Two agencies told Human Rights Watch that even with government permission it was impossible for them to travel during the fighting to Huthi-controlled areas because local tribal leaders (shaikhs), who liaise with the Huthis to guarantee agencies' safety, had no means of communication after the government incapacitated the mobile phone network.[118]

After the fifth round of fighting began in early May 2008, the government broadly prohibited all aid agency staff then in Sa'da town from traveling to nearby rural areas or to access nearby warehouses with food stocks.[119]

Although one UN agency staffer felt that civilians were able to travel freely from the rural areas to reach assistance in Sa'da town, staffers from other agencies told Human Rights Watch that civilians were prevented at both military and Huthi checkpoints from traveling from their villages to Sa'da town to seek food and medical assistance (see also below under health care). Despite their awareness of this "stuck" civilian population-people who could not stay in their villages due to the violence but who could also not  move freely to seek assistance-aid agencies had no way of reaching them.[120]

One aid agency also told Human Rights Watch that, on the exceptional occasions that the Ministry of Interior granted permission to travel to rural areas, soldiers manning military checkpoints refused to let them pass.[121]

Closure of the San'a-Sa'da road: blocking necessities to civilians

The government's blocking of basic necessities, including both humanitarian assistance and commercial trade, to Sa'da town in mid-2008 amounted to an unlawful restriction on humanitarian access to the civilian population. When carried out in retribution for civilians' alleged support of the Huthis, it is a form of collective punishment prohibited under international humanitarian law.[122]

Beginning around May 12, 2008, following two weeks of heavy fighting in Dhahyan district to the north of Sa'da town, the government turned down all aid agency requests to travel from the capital San'a to Sa'da town, usually citing insecurity caused by Huthi checkpoints.[123] The closure continued until July 20, 2008. As a result, for ten weeks no humanitarian supplies (food, non-food items, and medicine) reached Sa'da, and aid workers in Sa'da town assisting the 60,000 IDPs in the town and the camps there were forced to work with the limited supplies already on hand when the fighting erupted.

During the same period, the government also blocked the movement of all commercial goods, including staple foods and fuel.[124] A number of sources told Human Rights Watch that between early May and mid-July 2008, no diesel reached Sa'da, and petrol and diesel prices doubled. As a result, diesel-run generators powering Sa'da town were inactive, leading to an electricity blackout for over two months.[125]

Human Rights Watch spoke with a displaced person from Sa'da who said that food and non-food prices had increased significantly during the closure: a bag of wheat increased from 7,000 Yemeni Rial (YER) (US$35) to YER 21,000 ($105) while a cooking gas cylinder increased from YER 550 ($2.75) to YER 2,500 ($ 12.50).[126] According to an employee of one of Sa'da's hospitals, the price of a 200-liter container of diesel increased from YER 7,500 ($37.50) to YER 22,000 ($110).[127]

Sa'da town was not the only area where the government broadly blocked humanitarian aid and commercial traffic. Between May 4 and July 17, fighting spread beyond all 15 districts of Sa'da governorate into other parts of Yemen, including al-Jawf, 'Amran, Hajja and San'a governorates. When the conflict reached Bani Hushaish district in San'a governorate in June 2008, within 20 kilometers of the capital, the government imposed a blockade of diesel and food products on the entire civilian population in the district. The measure appears to be unlawful collective punishment. An official from the Sa'da Governor's office told the media that the aim was "to push the locals to understand that they must cooperate with the state against the Huthis even if they are their relatives or neighbors."[128]

Access to health care

Yemeni and international medical staff working in Sa'da town's Republican Hospital continued to work during the fifth round of fighting. However, the San'a-Sa'da road closure meant that no supplies reached the hospital between early May and late July 2008, leading to shortages, particularly in the hospital's laboratory. The town's second hospital, the Saudi-funded Al-Salam Hospital, was closed to civilians in early May 2008 to cope with the high number of military casualties. As a result, the 30-bed Republican Hospital had to cope with an increased number of civilians seeking help. At times staff had to turn people away because of lack of capacity.[129]

Since early in the war, possibly around 2005, the government instructed Ministry of Health staff across Sa'da governorate to report wounded persons seeking help in a government health facility.[130]During the fifth round of fighting some wounded civilians as well as those with other medical needs opted not to seek medical help, refused transfer between health facilities, and fled health facilities for fear of arrest for being a Huthi rebel or Huthi supporter; some were arrested inside health facilities.[131]

For a limited period during the fifth round of fighting, only locals from Sa'da town could access Republican Hospital. An unofficial curfew in effect in Sa'da governorate during the fifth round of fighting precluded civilians traveling after dark for any reason, effectively denying access to civilians from rural areas.[132] Many people did not even try to reach Sa'da town for emergency medical care, leading, for example, to miscarriages by women with no access to midwives.[133]

The Islah Charitable Society, a Yemeni NGO related to the Islah Party and working in the health sector, such as with malnourished women and children, carried out limited work in Sahar, al-Zhahir, and Malahit districts in Sa'da governorate between January and May 2008, but was unable to access these areas when armed conflict resumed in May 2008.[134] In June 2008, this NGO was also unable to access a number of "informal gatherings" of IDPs in Bani Sa'd district displaced from the previous (fourth) round of fighting, whom they had been able to reach in early 2008.[135]

Although MSF national staff, working side-by-side with government staff, remained in all of its healthcare projects in Sa'da governorate throughout the fifth round of fighting, the organization evacuated its international staff from Sa'da governorate on June 17, 2008, and published the following article on its website:

Since 10 May, we had been unable to deploy our assistance in satisfactory conditions, whether for treating injured, or assisting displaced persons. It is difficult to know precisely what is happening in the areas of fighting, or areas controlled by the rebellion: access is prohibited for security reasons, there are no independent observers present, and most communication networks are severed. No numbers are available concerning dead or injured. However, the use of heavy weapons, aerial bombardment of villages, and information from other sources all leads to concern over civilian casualties.

Yet most civilians have no access to adequate care structures. Civilians cannot always get to a hospital, either on account of the danger of travelling through the fighting, or because they fear being accused of supporting the rebellion, therefore of being arrested. Even for medical staff, access to hospitals and health centres is complicated, sometimes impossible-this compounds the problems of access to care for the injured…

Furthermore, where we did receive precise information concerning injury victims requiring treatment, we found it impossible to bring them in: this was notably the case at Dhahyan, a village under rebel control, located a ten-minute drive from Al Tahl  [al-Talh] (which lies in the government zone). On 11 May, our Yemeni team treated 25 women and children there, who had been injured in shelling. Since their condition demanded evacuation, two ambulances left Al Tahl [al-Talh] to pick them up, after obtaining permission from the authorities. However, on account of heavy firing in the vicinity, the team was unable to evacuate them. The injured were aware that the ambulance had gone back. MSF later learned that seven of these patients died over the next 24 hours.

Another consequence of the war, the most visible so far, is the number of people streaming out towards Saada or Malahit [towns] … where MSF teams have been able to assess the situation…. [However], we were unable to provide assistance to [these] IDPs for safety reasons and because our discussions with the authorities and other aid agencies in situ were not successful.[136]

Humanitarian access since the end of fighting

Three days after President Saleh declared an end to the fifth round of fighting on July 17, 2008, Minister of Interior Rashad al-Masri met with international humanitarian agencies and announced that they had full and unrestricted access to the whole of Sa'da governorate.[137]

The reality was considerably less open. Agencies had to ask the ministry for permission for each and every trip, a requirement that seriously restricted operational effectiveness.[138] By the end of August 2008, the ministry had permitted visits to very few areas, citing ongoing fighting and Huthi checkpoints as reasons for denying access.[139]

WFP Yemeni contractors were able to transport food to Sa'da town on July 19, and the first international NGO received permission to travel to Sa'da town on July 27. By July 29, authorities gave the Yemeni Red Crescent permission to enter Sa'da town but nowhere else in the governorate.[140]

Around July 20, the UN resident coordinator asked the government for permission for a joint UN agency assessment mission to travel, with armed escorts, to Sa'da town, including to camps on the outskirts of the town, and to Malahit town in al-Zhahir district in southwest Sa'da governorate.[141] More than two weeks later the authorities granted permission, and the mission took place in mid-August. A humanitarian NGO told Human Rights Watch that at the time local government officials had told them that access to the rural areas near Malahit town was difficult as "even the security forces don't go there" because the Huthis had full control of parts of the surrounding area.[142]

On August 8, three weeks after the official end of fighting, the ICRC stated that "except in Sa'da city and its immediate vicinity, it remains difficult or impossible for the ICRC to operate in the conflict zones of northern Yemen…. [T]he ICRC has so far only provided basic emergency assistance mainly to displaced persons in camps close to the city [of Sa'da]."[143]

This situation is echoed by media reports in late August 2008, according to which members of the government's reconstruction committee stated that "many displaced residents in Haidan and Saqain districts are experiencing harsh living conditions because relief agencies and charitable organizations are concentrating on those refugees living in tents in the suburbs around the provincial capital [Sa'da town]," and that the majority of the displaced were living far from Sa'da town.[144]

By September 2008, the government had not granted international agencies access to either Haidan or Saqin districts because of what the authorities said were ongoing skirmishes between the Huthis, tribes, and government forces.[145]

In other areas there was some expansion of humanitarian access. In late August 2008 the government granted access to international agencies working in Malahit and Dhahyan town and districts, and to Razih and al-Talh towns.  As of late October, however, access to rural areas was extremely limited at best, because of security concerns, restrictive checkpoints, and uncertainty about which areas are under control of government forces, Huthi rebels, or tribesmen from the area.[146]

Attacks on humanitarian agencies

Due to the government's information blackout and aid agencies' understandable reluctance to report on incidents involving loss of vehicles or materials, there is little information available on the extent of attacks on humanitarian agencies. However, a number of incidents have been reported.

On May 2, 2007, unidentified parties employed heavy gunfire against a 15-truck humanitarian convoy belonging to the ICRC and the Yemeni Red Crescent, clearly marked with the Red Crescent emblem, 18 kilometers north of Sa'da town. The convoy was carrying emergency supplies for 560 displaced families in Baqim district in northern Sa'da governorate. Two Red Crescent volunteers were injured.[147]

In May 2008, pro-government tribes attacked a Yemeni Red Crescent convoy with non-food items in the Huth district of 'Amran governorate. The agency had agreed with the authorities in 'Amran governorate to set up three camps for displaced families. The Yemeni Red Crescent subsequently suspended all activities in 'Amran governorate and was only able to reach the displaced in August 2008.[148]

Unidentified parties attacked the Yemeni Red Crescent when it tried to access 600 families in Harf Sufyan during the height of the fighting in June 2008.[149]

During the second and third weeks of August 2008 – three weeks after the official end of the fifth round of fighting – unknown parties stole single vehicles from two international humanitarian agencies on the main road from San'a to Sa'da.[150]