Helen Lackner is the author of Yemen in Crisis: The Road to War. She worked in rural development and lived in the three Yemeni states for fifteen years.
Thirty years ago today, Yemen united as one country in a mood of optimism about the future. Those hopes were to be cruelly disappointed, thanks to the destructive, self-serving record and rivalry of Yemen's political elites.
The Saudi-led, US-backed war in Yemen has produced a humanitarian hellscape. And there's no end in sight.
Yemen had the longest and deepest Arab Spring — why did the country collapse into civil war?