Country
Yemen
A decade-long war fought mostly by neighbors and proxies, engaged by Kenya's own voice nearly every month across its two-year Council term.
Yemen's civil war began on 21 September 2014, when Houthi fighters, a Zaydi Shia movement from the country's north with links to Iran, seized the capital, Sanaa. The internationally recognized government collapsed within months, and in March 2015 a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of nine countries intervened militarily to try to restore it, turning a domestic uprising into a regional war fought partly by proxy.
More than a decade later, the war has never formally ended. A UN-brokered truce in April 2022 stabilized front lines without producing a political settlement, and the country remains split between a Houthi-controlled north and an internationally recognized government based in the south, with the UN's own peacekeeping-adjacent mission in the country winding down in 2026 without a resolution to point to.
The Security Council has treated Yemen as a standing agenda item for essentially the entire life of the war, with monthly or near-monthly briefings from the UN Special Envoy and, since 2018, oversight of a fragile agreement on the port city of Hudaydah. Kenya's own engagement with this file was sustained: Kimani delivered Kenya's national statement at the Council's Yemen briefings roughly every month from February 2021 through January 2022, returning repeatedly to the same handful of concerns, the Marib front line, the risk of the war seeding terrorism regionally, and above all the Safer oil tanker, whose slow decay off Hudaydah he argued the Council was failing to resolve.
In October 2021, Kenya's presidency month, he combined the Council presidency with delivering that same national statement at the same briefing. His June 2021 statement went further than the others, using the file to press a broader argument about Red Sea and Gulf of Aden security, citing IGAD's own 2018 regional analysis.
After the April 2022 truce settled Yemen into a lower-intensity, recurring item, Kenya's statements at these briefings passed down the mission's own chain, first to Deputy Permanent Representative Michael Kiboino, later to more junior political officers. This reflects a normal diplomatic division of labor for a file no longer commanding the Permanent Representative's own voice every month, rather than any disengagement by Kenya from the file itself.
Independent Sources for This Introduction
Chronology
| 2014-09-21 | event | Houthi forces take control of Sanaa Houthi fighters seize government offices, state television, and military headquarters in Yemen's capital, the opening act of what becomes a decade-long civil war. President Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi's government collapses over the following months. |
| 2015-03-26 | event | Saudi-led coalition intervenes A nine-country coalition led by Saudi Arabia, acting at the request of the ousted Hadi government, begins air and naval operations against Houthi forces, internationalizing what had been a domestic conflict and drawing in a wider regional rivalry with Iran. |
| 2021-02-18 | event | Kenya addresses the Council on Yemen Kenya's Permanent Representative speaks at a closed Council consultations session on Yemen, opening what becomes a sustained, near-monthly practice through 2021 and into 2022. Delivered in closed consultations rather than an open meeting, so it is recorded here as an event rather than a published statement. |
| 2021-03-16 | Statement | Yemen: Statement During Briefing Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations |
| 2021-04-15 | Statement | Yemen: Statement During Briefing Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations |
| 2021-06-03 | Statement | Safer Tanker and Red Sea Security: Statement During Briefing Permanent Representative of Kenya to the United Nations |
| 2021-06-15 | event | Kenya addresses a combined Council briefing and consultations on Yemen Kenya's statement condemns a wave of missile attacks in Marib and again presses the Council on the stalled Safer Tanker inspection. The session combined an open briefing with closed consultations, and which portion this statement belongs to is not confirmed, so it is recorded here as an event rather than a published statement. |
| 2021-10-14 | event | Kenya, presiding, addresses the Council on Yemen During Kenya's Council presidency month, Kimani both chairs this briefing and delivers Kenya's own statement, condemning the month's violence in Marib and Shabwa and again pressing the stalled Safer Tanker inspection. The Council's own press statement independently confirms this session occurred (SC/14671); the statement's own text, from a combined briefing-and-consultations session, is recorded here as an event rather than a published statement, since which portion it belongs to is not confirmed. |
| 2022-01-12 | event | Kenya addresses a combined Council briefing and consultations on Yemen Kenya's statement raises the humanitarian toll in Al Jawf governorate and the exclusion of women from Yemen's political process. The session combined an open briefing with closed consultations, and the working copy is itself only a draft whose delivery is unconfirmed, so it is recorded here as an event rather than as a published statement. |
| 2022-04-02 | event | UN-brokered nationwide truce takes effect A two-month truce negotiated by UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg halts offensive air, ground, and maritime operations across Yemen for the first time in years, and is repeatedly renewed. Frontlines have remained largely stable since, even after the truce's original terms lapsed. |
| 2022-04-14 | Statement | Yemen: Statement During Briefing Kenya's national statement, delivered by Amb. Michael Kiboino, Deputy Permanent Representative |
| 2022-06-14 | Statement | Yemen: Statement During Briefing Kenya's national statement, delivered by Mr. Gideon Kinuthia, Deputy Political Coordinator |
| 2022-07-11 | event | Statement on Yemen, delivery uncertain between two working drafts Two working copies of this statement survive: one headed for delivery by Kimani, one for Michael Kiboino, nearly identical in substance. Which was actually read into the record has not been independently confirmed; it is included here as an event rather than attributed to either individual as an archive object, pending an official UN record of the session.
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| 2022-08-15 | Statement | Yemen: Statement During Briefing Kenya's national statement, delivered by Amb. Michael Kiboino, Deputy Permanent Representative |
| 2022-11-22 | Statement | Yemen: Statement During Briefing Kenya's national statement, delivered by Mr. Swabri Abbas, political officer |
| 2026-04-01 | event | UNMHA begins winding down The Security Council extends the mandate of the UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) for a final two months only, adopting resolution 2813 (2026) with 13 votes in favour and 2 abstentions, and directs the mission into liquidation. The war remains formally unresolved: peace talks stalled after the Houthis' response to the Gaza war in October 2023, and the Houthis have intermittently resumed Red Sea and Israel-directed strikes tied to that separate conflict, most recently in early 2026. |