The recent civil war in Yemen prompted neighboring Saudi Arabia to intervene militarily six weeks ago, launching airstrikes, bombing targets from border stations, shelling from the sea, and establishing a blockade. Rebels recently overran the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, and forced the Western-backed president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, to flee the country. To halt the uprising, the Saudi government formed a coalition of Arab nations including Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, and Bahrain, with the support of the United States in the form of weapons, intelligence, and naval blockade enforcement. For months now, numerous groups have been battling each other inside Yemen, including factions of ISIS and Al Qaeda, but the main belligerents are the Iran-allied Houthi movement, fighting the Hadi government, backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States. In Yemen, loyalties are mixed, even among government soldiers, and the situation on the ground is chaotic and bleak. Refugees are fleeing by the thousands, as the U.N. reports that nearly 650 civilians have been killed in hundreds of airstrikes in the past month. Today, Saudi Arabia proposed a five-day ceasefire to allow the distribution of humanitarian aid, on condition that fighting across Yemen stops, while the Houthis demand a complete end to the airstrikes as a condition for UN-sponsored talks.
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A Saudi soldier fires a mortar towards Houthi positions, at the Saudi border with Yemen on April 21, 2015. #
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The sky over Sanaa, Yemen, is illuminated by anti-aircraft fire during a Saudi-led airstrike on April 17, 2015. #
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Explosions at a military site after it was hit by an air strike on the Faj Attan mountain of Sanaa on March 30, 2015. #
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Smoke billows on the horizon as supporters of exiled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi block a road in al-Mansura, east of the southern Yemeni city of Aden, as they try to make advances on the Khor Maskar area of the city held by Shiite-Houthi rebels on April 29, 2015. #
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People stand around a crater near the site of houses destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, on May 1, 2015. #
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A Yemeni man grabs a child by his clothes as he searches for survivors under the rubble in houses destroyed by an overnight Saudi-led air strike on a residential area in Sanaa on May 1, 2015. #
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Smoke billows during an airstrike on the Republican Palace in Yemen's southwestern city of Taiz on April 17, 2015. #
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Armed militiamen, allied to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, clash with opponents and Houthi rebels in the port city of Aden's Dar Saad suburb, on April 22, 2015. #
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The body of a militiaman loyal to Yemen's President Abderabbo Mansour Hadi lies in the middle of a street, during reported clashes with Houthi rebels in the port city of Aden's Dar Saad suburb on April 25, 2015. #
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A Southern Popular Resistance fighter fires a weapon mounted on a truck during clashes with Houthi fighters in Yemen's southern city of Aden on May 3, 2015. Between 40-50 Arab special forces soldiers arrived in Aden on Sunday and deployed alongside local fighters against the Houthi militia, a spokesman for the Southern Popular Resistance said. #
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Men on a motorbike rush a man, who was injured in crossfire between tribal fighters and Shiite rebels, to a hospital, in Taiz, Yemen, on April 26, 2015. #
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Smoke billows as supporters of exiled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi continue to clash with Shiite Houthi rebels in the Khor Maksar neighborhood of Aden on May 3, 2015. #
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A picture taken on May 5, 2015, shows the wreckage of a Yemeni air force military transport aircraft on the tarmac of the rebel-controlled international airport of Sanaa, a day after it was destroyed by an air strike of the Saudi-led coalition. #
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Displaced Yemenis shelter in a man-made underground water tunnel after their houses were destroyed by air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led alliance, in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on April 29, 2015. #
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A Yemeni man who was wounded in an airstrike rests in an underground water tunnel where he is taking shelter with his family after their houses were destroyed by air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led alliance in Sanaa, on April 30, 2015. #
Mohammed Huwais / AFP / Getty ImagesA girl rests next to her mother (not pictured) inside an underground water tunnel with other displaced Yemeni families, after they were forced to flee their home due to ongoing airstrikes in Sanaa on May 2, 2015. #Mohamed Al-Sayaghi / Reuters -
Saudi soldiers look toward the border with Yemen, at a military structure in Najran, Saudi Arabia, on April 21, 2015. A cross-border attack on Saudi Arabia by Yemeni rebel forces resulted in late-night clashes on April 30, 2015 that left three Saudi soldiers and "dozens" of Yemeni rebels dead, according to the Saudi Defense Ministry. #
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A Saudi sniper takes up a position at the Saudi border with Yemen on April 13, 2015. #
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Supporters of the Shiite Houthi movement brandish their weapons as they take part in a demonstration in the capital Sanaa on May 1, 2015, against the Saudi-led air campaign targeting Houthi rebels and their allies in Yemen. #
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A stadium, destroyed by an air strike in Yemen's central city of Ibb, on April 13, 2015. #
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A man holds a projectile fragment after a Saudi-led airstrike against Houthi rebels hit a weapons cache in Yemen's capital on April 20, 2015. #
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Loyalists of exiled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi gather next to tanks on a road on the outskirts of the southern city of Aden, on April 30, 2015. #
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A boy looks out of the window of a Yemen Red Crescent vehicle as he leaves an underground water tunnel with other displaced people, after they were forced to flee their homes due to ongoing airstrikes in Sanaa on May 2, 2015. #
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Smoke rises during an airstrike on an army weapons depot on a mountain overlooking Yemen's capital Sanaa on April 20, 2015. #
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A Houthi militant holds his rifle at the yard of the residence of the military commander of the Houthi militant group, Abdullah Yahya al Hakim, after an airstrike destroyed it in Sanaa on April 28, 2015. #
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A boy searches rubble in a damaged a street after an April 20 airstrike that hit a nearby weapons depot, in Sanaa, on April 21, 2015. #
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Walaa Hussien al-Hutroum, 9, sits in a hospital where she is being treated for injuries she sustained in an airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen, on April 25, 2015. The girl was hit with shrapnel from a missile that struck a nearby checkpoint on a road she and her family were travelling on as they were fleeing their home in Yemen's northwestern province of Saada a week ago, medics said. #
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A member of the Popular Resistance Committee cries as another closes the eyes of a comrade who died at a hospital of injuries he sustained during clashes with Houthi fighters in Yemen's southwestern city of Taiz on April 27, 2015. #
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A man walks toward a house that was damaged during an airstrike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition in Faj Attan village, Sanaa, Yemen, on May 7, 2015. The air strikes in this part of Sanaa have forced the village's population to flee their homes. #
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A worker throws a stuffed toy to another as they move furniture from a house damaged after an airstrike struck a nearby missile base, in Yemen's capital Sanaa, on April 23, 2015. #
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A member of the airport security force walks in front of a destroyed Felix Airways plane, after it was hit in an airstrike, at the international airport of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on April 29, 2015. Coalition warplanes destroyed the runway at Sanaa's rebel-held airport after an Iranian plane "defied" a blockade on Yemeni airspace, the spokesman for the Saudi-led alliance said. #
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A man walks past writing on a wall along a street damaged by an airstrike in Sanaa on April 21, 2015. The writing reads, "Death to Al-Saud", referring to Saudi Arabia's royal family. #
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A girl sits inside her house which was damaged by a shell which landed from a nearby missile base after the base was struck by a Saudi-led coalition air strike, near Sanaa, on April 23, 2015. #
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Saudi army artillery fires shells towards Houthi movement positions at the Saudi border with Yemen on April 15, 2015. #
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A boy holds up a weapon as he joins followers of the Houthi group demonstrating against the Saudi-led air strikes in Sanaa on April 22, 2015. #
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Smoke rises after a Saudi-led airstrike hit a site where many believe the largest weapons cache in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, was located on April 20, 2015. Powerful explosions rocked the Yemeni capital early Monday morning during the strike, shattering windows and waking residents. #
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Southern Popular Resistance fighters react as one of their tanks fire at a Houthi position during fighting in Yemen's southern city of Aden on May 7, 2015. #
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A doctor examines a bullet wound on the head of Farah Abdallah, seven-year-old Yemeni refugee, at a hospital in Djibouti on May 5, 2015. Farah was shot in the head by a sniper in Aden before fleeing with her mother by boat to Djibouti. Farah has been offered financial assistance from a Yemeni benefactor to pay for her flights for critical brain surgery but no country will currently accept her. Doctors say she is at risk of death any day. #
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People use a tug boat to flee Yemen's southern port city of Aden amid fighting between Houthi fighters and the Southern Popular Resistance Committees on May 5, 2015. #
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A man carries an elderly woman from a ship carrying people fleeing violence in Yemen, at the port of Bosasso in Somalia's Puntland region, on April 16, 2015. #
Feisal Omar / Reuters
