From Aden to Sanaa, families across Yemen are confronting a deepening economic struggle defined by soaring prices and unpaid salaries, far beyond the immediate front lines of the conflict. According to Al Jazeera, intensifying fighting between the government and the Houthis has compounded a dire financial landscape, leaving millions to navigate a fragmented banking system and severely depressed purchasing power.

Al Jazeera reported that in Aden, the internationally recognised Yemeni government's interim capital, markets are not short of goods, but residents lack the means to buy them. Government employee Bushra Abdullah Abdulwarith told Al Jazeera that she earns 78,000 Yemeni riyals ($50) a month at the black market exchange rate, while typical household food costs in government-held areas run about 130,366 riyals ($83), according to estimates by the Yemen Economic Tracking Initiative cited by Al Jazeera. This leaves workers unable to cover rent, healthcare, and transport, forcing households to drop non-essential purchases, cut back on meat, and buy food in smaller quantities or on credit.

Background

According to Al Jazeera, Yemen's economic decline stems from more than a decade of war. The World Bank notes that real GDP per capita has fallen by approximately 58 percent since 2015. Contributing factors include the fragmentation of monetary institutions between the government and the Houthis—who seized Sanaa in 2014—alongside the disruption of oil exports and declining international assistance. A divided banking system has further complicated the movement of money across different regions.

Why it matters

For observers in Pakistan and across the wider region, the situation highlights the severe humanitarian and economic tolls that prolonged conflicts exert on civilian populations. As families struggle with currency depreciation, fractured financial systems, and basic survival costs, the crisis underscores the heavy toll that macro-level economic fragmentation takes on ordinary households trying to afford daily food and healthcare.