By Abdullahi Jimoh
The long-standing conflict between Yemen’s Houthi movement and the Saudi-led coalition has shaped how African media frame developments in the war. As African newspapers report the latest escalation, whose voices and perspectives are shaping what audiences understand about the conflict?
The answer appears to be influenced not only by the events taking place on the ground, but also by the sources available to African newsrooms. Government statements, international news agencies and geopolitical developments often feature prominently in coverage, while the voices of Yemenis directly affected by the conflict can be harder to find.
The African dimension
The conflict also has a direct African dimension. The advance of the Houthis along Yemen’s Red Sea coast has repeatedly raised concerns about the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a narrow maritime passage connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Disruptions to the shipping route can have consequences for African economies, particularly countries whose trade depends on Red Sea shipping.
This has prompted African governments to issue statements on developments in the conflict, giving local newspapers another source from which to frame their reports.
This means that coverage of the war is not simply about reporting what happened. It also involves framing: the selection, evaluation, naming, labelling and presentation of particular events, actors and ideas.
“One of the key indicators is framing, which tells us the focus or major fact highlighted,” said Ekpali Saint, an international journalist who covers religion.
Framing the conflict
In conflict reporting, how actors and events are framed can influence how readers interpret responsibility, victimhood and the wider causes of violence. It can also determine whether audiences encounter a conflict primarily through the statements of governments and military actors or through the experiences of people living through it. Saint said the frequency of coverage is another indicator because it can provide an idea of which events a newspaper considers important.
A review of coverage by African media shows that some reports give considerable prominence to statements from governments and official sources. The Standard, one of Kenya’s oldest newspapers, for example, reported Kenya’s condemnation of attacks attributed to Yemen’s Houthi movement against Saudi Arabia and highlighted Nairobi’s support for the Kingdom.
The report largely relied on official positions, raising questions about whether African audiences are being given sufficient context about the competing claims and the broader history of the conflict.
A similar pattern appears in coverage by Somalia’s Shabelle Media Network, an independent media organisation. Its report used language describing the attacks as those carried out by “Yemeni Houthi rebels” against civilians, while giving prominence to the condemnation of the attacks.
Ethiopia’s The Reporter also foregrounded the Houthis in its headline and coverage of the conflict.
The use of such descriptions is not, by itself, evidence of inaccurate reporting. However, when similar terminology and official accounts recur across different African outlets, it raises a question about whether newsrooms are independently framing the conflict or reproducing the language and perspectives contained in government statements and international news reports.
This is particularly important because much of the coverage of conflicts outside Africa is agency-driven.
Who is influencing the narrative?
Violet Ikong, a journalist who covers migration and humanitarian crises across Africa, said African newsrooms often depend on international news agencies when reporting conflicts.
“African media solely depend and build their own stories of the conflict outside the continent from the news agencies because they lack resources and equipment to cover such conflict,” she said.
According to Ikong, African journalists may assume that reports from major international news agencies have already undergone extensive verification. But if those reports contain particular framing or perspectives, African outlets that reproduce them can also reproduce the same imbalance.
The question, therefore, is not simply whether African newspapers are reporting the conflict accurately. It is whose perspectives are being amplified and whose are missing.
Why the conflict matters to understanding the coverage
The conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia has a complicated history that can be lost when coverage focuses primarily on the latest attacks. Yemen’s current war escalated in 2014, when the Houthi movement seized control of Sanaa after years of political and military confrontation with the Yemeni government. In early 2015, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi fled Yemen after the Houthis took control of key state institutions and later rescinded his resignation while in exile in Saudi Arabia.
In March 2015, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched a military intervention in Yemen in support of Hadi’s internationally recognised government. The conflict subsequently developed into a wider regional confrontation, with the Houthis receiving support from Iran while Saudi Arabia and its allies backed the Yemeni government.
The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, emerged from Yemen’s Zaydi Shia community. The movement takes its name from its founder, Hussein al-Houthi, who was killed by Yemeni government forces in 2004. Its current leader is Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is a Sunni-majority country, and the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has become an important part of the wider geopolitical context surrounding the conflict. However, reducing the war solely to a Sunni-Shia confrontation risks overlooking Yemen’s internal political grievances, the country’s humanitarian crisis and the competing interests of regional and international actors.
African audiences
For African audiences, that context matters because the conflict is not only being reported as a geopolitical confrontation. It is also a humanitarian crisis affecting millions of people, with fighting displacing people and damaging infrastructure. Yet reports centred on attacks, diplomatic statements, shipping and regional alliances can leave the experiences of ordinary Yemenis at the margins.
For African media, there is also a question of proximity. The Bab el-Mandeb connects Yemen directly to the African continent, while instability in the Red Sea can affect African trade, shipping and regional security. This gives African newsrooms a reason to develop their own perspective on the conflict rather than simply reproducing narratives generated elsewhere.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Media Diversity Institute. Any question or comment should be addressed to [email protected]
