U.S. Airstrikes in Yemen Raise Alarming Humanitarian Concerns

BY: Haley Brown//Staff Writer

Results of bombing in Yemen via CNN

On March 24, the U.S. launched a new wave of airstrikes across Yemen aspart of a growing campaign the White House has framed as a crackdown on terrorism. In a public post, the president confirmed the strikes, calling them “decisive and powerful military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.” 

Trump emphasized that the campaign is a direct response to what he described as an “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism” against international shipping routes. 

These strikes, according to the president, are meant to preserve the principle of free navigation through critical waterways and to deter Iran from backing Houthi forces.

But as American fighter jets roar overhead, reports from the ground suggest the reality is far more complicated  and far more tragic.

Jackson Hinkle, a reporter currently on the ground in Yemen, posted a video from what remains of Al-Rasool Al-Azam Oncology Hospital in Saada, a rural and impoverished region of the country. 

“The United States has been telling the world that they are targeting Houthi rebel military bases. But this is not a Houthi military base,” Hinkle says in the video. “It was bombed 11 times by the United States over the past two weeks... Guess what it is? A cancer hospital.”

The facility, still under construction, was set to become Yemen’s most advanced cancer treatment center; a vital resource in a country where access to medication and care has become a growing crisis. Cancer diagnoses in Yemen have surged by nearly 50% in the past decade, while doctors report that only about half of the necessary medications are available. Costs have skyrocketed. For many, treatment is simply out of reach.

Two people were injured during the March 24 airstrike on the hospital. Hinkle notes that although no one was killed, the destruction of the under-construction site is devastating. 

“The money here is very sparse,” he said. “You can't just build a cancer hospital again.”The U.S. has maintained that the strikes are carefully targeted and justified by the need to suppress Houthi operations, especially after threats were made against Israel-linked vessels in the Red Sea. 

However, reports emerging from Yemen tell a story of indiscriminate devastation. In addition to the hospital, a university serving active students was bombed “to the ground,” according to Hinkle. Other strikes have hit civilian infrastructure, including a vital water source in western Yemen, cutting off clean water for over 60,000 people.

These actions have reignited concerns about the U.S.’s role in Yemen’s ongoing humanitarian crisis. Since 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition backed by the U.S. began military operations against the Houthis, Yemen has endured one of the world’s most catastrophic conflicts. By the time a fragile truce was brokered in 2022, the United Nations estimated 377,000 people had died, most from indirect causes such as hunger and disease.

While the current administration escalates operations in Yemen and celebrates the killing of a high-ranking ISIS official elsewhere, many human rights observers are calling attention to the growing civilian toll. In March alone, U.S. airstrikes reportedly killed at least 53 people, including four children, and ravaged parts of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

The president has warned Iran to “beware of their choices” if they continue to support the Houthis. But critics argue that the U.S.’s own choices, particularly its willingness to strike impoverished communities and critical civilian infrastructure, are only deepening the suffering of a country already in collapse.

As military action continues and the president doubles down on threats of “overwhelming lethal force,” the question remains: At what cost? For Yemen’s sick, its students, and the millions teetering on the edge of famine and disease, that cost may already be far too high.